


Separation Anxiety

by mizzmarvel, poisonivory



Category: Drake & Josh
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23920642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizzmarvel/pseuds/mizzmarvel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonivory/pseuds/poisonivory
Summary: One of Josh's magic tricks goes awry, and the boys have to live with the consequences—if they don't kill each other first.
Relationships: Josh Nichols/Drake Parker
Comments: 11
Kudos: 96





	1. The Joshapalooza Handcuffiganza

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written and posted to LiveJournal in 2007. We were both of an appropriate age to find Drake and Josh hot, and frankly, we still do.

My brother Drake and I do everything together.  
  
I can get my brother Josh to do _anything_.  
  
Like the time he made me an honorary member of his band and insisted I go with them on an out-of-town gig.  
  
Like the time I talked him into being a roadie for my band _and_ driving us all the way out to Encinitas. He paid for gas, food, hotel rooms, and everything, too.  
  
Hanging out with Drake is...expensive.  
  
Hanging out with Josh is _awesome_.  
  
But I don't know, sometimes I guess we might spend a little too much time together. Crazy as that sounds!  
  
But there's definitely such a thing as Too Much Josh.  
  
Sometimes I worry that when I go to college, he'll be lost without me. He _depends_ on me, you know?  
  
Sometimes I worry that when Josh goes to college, I'll get really worn out from all the sexy, all-girl parties I'll be hosting in our room.  
  
Then again, some space might be good.  
  
Then again, he will be surrounded by hot college girls.

I wonder if I’ll get my own room at college?  
  
I wonder if I can live in his room at college?  
  
  
  
"Joshakazaam!" Josh bellowed, and with an elaborate pitcher's wind-up, twirled his wand over the top hat. Smoke billowed out, and Josh grinned. Drake, half-watching as he sat on the couch and fiddled with his guitar, knew why; it was the farthest Josh had ever gotten with this trick without hurting himself. It was too bad – Drake thought it was kind of funny when Josh hurt himself.  
  
"Excellent," Josh said, looking down at the hat, but talking was a mistake. It involved inhalation, and inhaling introduced smoke to his asthma-riddled lungs. Drake sat up to watch properly as Josh hacked like a cat with a furball, then started coughing, muscles spasming as he waved the wand around haphazardly, trying to thin out the smoke that surrounded him. _Hilarious._  
  
"Uh, son?"  
  
Their parents stood in the front doorway, clutching paper grocery bags and staring at Josh with concern. Megan stood just behind them, all gangly limbs and smirk.  
  
"Are you okay?" Audrey asked, shoving her bag into Walter's already full arms ("Oof!) and putting her hands on Josh's shoulders.  
  
"Fine," Josh wheezed, smiling. "Just practicing for my magic act." He tapped the rim of the top hat, then paused. "Hey, what happened to the rabbit?" He leaned forward and peered inside. "Oh, no."  
  
"What happened?" Walter asked, putting the grocery bags down.  
  
Josh covered the hat with one hand and hid his face with the other. "Don't look," he said. "It's not a pretty sight."  
  
"Did you kill _another_ rabbit?" Megan asked, pushing past Walter unnecessarily and rummaging through a shopping bag. "You know the pet store's not going to sell you another one. Especially not after the whole squirrel-eating thing."  
  
"Okay, for the last time, Drake made that up!" Josh snapped, glaring at Drake.  
  
Drake smiled in fond remembrance. “Yeah, I did. Good times.”  
  
Josh huffed self-righteously, peeked into the hat again, gagged, and covered it. "Man, I'm never gonna win the talent show if I keep killing my props!"  
  
Megan pulled a pear out of the bag. "Look at it this way. You probably wouldn't win even if you didn't destroy everything you touch."  
  
Josh glared. "That's not _helpful_ , Megan."  
  
"I know." Megan beamed and walked out of the room.  
  
Audrey sighed. "Josh, do you really think this magic act is necessary? You have an internship interview tomorrow afternoon, and then the talent show is just a few hours later. I really think you're overextending yourself."  
  
"But I've got to do it, Mom," Josh protested. "I mean, the internship is going to help me get scholarships, and the money I'll get for winning the talent show will help, too. It's five hundred bucks, and Harvard's not going to pay for itself."  
  
Drake rolled his eyes. It seemed like all Josh talked about these days was _college_. ‘Oooh, I have to go visit _colleges_. I have to study for my SATs so I can get into _college_. Drake, don’t spill limeade all over my application essay for _college_.’ It was all really annoying, if you asked him, and it was probably just going to get worse when Josh started. Drake wasn’t looking forward to it.  
  
"We have a college fund set up for you," Walter said.  
  
"Yeah, but I don't want to ask you to pay for everything," Josh said. "Things are going to get tight. There's my tuition, and books, and expenses, and Drake...well, he's probably going to need bail money or something."  
  
“Hey!” Drake cried indignantly.  
  
Audrey looked thoughtful. “You’re right, he probably will.”  
  
“Hey!” Drake cried again. “Anyway, Josh isn’t going to win the five hundred dollars. _I_ am. Well, my band, I mean.”  
  
Josh stared at him. “What?”  
  
Drake pretended to be deeply interested in the timbre of his E-string. “I, uh, signed up for the talent show earlier today.”  
  
Audrey and Walter exchanged glances. “Um, we have to…go upstairs,” Audrey said. “Put the groceries away, would you, boys?’  
  
“Have fun fighting!” Walter added as they backed out of the room. “Try not to break any furniture!”  
  
Josh faced Drake, hands on his hips. “I can’t believe you!” he said. “First of all, as your band manager, I should be apprised of any performances you line up. And second of all, you know how much I need that money!”  
  
Drake looked up. “First of all, I don’t know what ‘apprised’ means, and second of all, I need that money too!”  
  
“For what?”  
  
Drake turned back to his guitar. “New amp.”  
  
"New amp!" Josh exploded. "New - !" He raised his fists, teeth clenched, before taking a deep breath to calm himself. "Are you _honestly_ suggesting that a new amp is on the same level of concern as my FUTURE?"  
  
"Whatever, man," Drake said, shrugging. "I need this amp, and I need it now."  
  
"What's wrong with _that_ amp?" Josh hissed, pointing at amp Drake currently had a foot propped up on.  
  
"That amp?" Drake looked at it, considered the question, then shrugged again. "Doesn't match the drum set."  
  
Josh narrowed his eyes. "It doesn't match," he said in that low, deadly calm voice that was usually a pretty good indication that Drake should run if he possibly could. Unfortunately, Josh was blocking the nearest exit.  
  
"We going for a look?" Drake suggested with a cringe, waiting for the inevitable Josh-spolsion. He was not disappointed.  
  
"A LOOK!" Josh yelled, arms flailing. He stalked over and grabbed the guitar out of Drake's hands, strumming it clumsily. "Looka me," he drawled. "I'm Drake Parker, and my rock-n-roll lifestyle's more important than my brother's entire life!"  
  
"Stop it!" Drake leapt to his feet and took back the guitar. "You're hurting Betsy!"  
  
"And _you’re_ hurting my chances of paying for college!” Josh replied, as Drake put Betsy down gingerly on the chair behind him. “Don’t you even care about anything but your stupid music?”  
  
“Stupid?” Drake demanded, his own temper mounting. So _college boy_ thought he was stupid? That figured. He gave Josh a little shove. “My music is not stupid! People _love_ my music — which is more than I can say for your _magic_.”  
  
Josh gasped, and shoved him back. “How dare you!”  
  
“No one cares about your lame magic tricks, okay, Josh?” Drake continued. He knew he was being cruel, but truth to tell, he kind of enjoyed it. He put his hands on Josh’s chest and shoved again, harder this time, and he enjoyed that, too. “We’re not seven, okay? No one wants to see you pull a rabbit out of your hat. _Especially_ not a dead one.”  
  
"The band of hoboes who came to my show that one time were _thrilled_ to get that dead rabbit, I'll have you know!" Josh shot back. "Besides," he added, a hint of smugness in his voice. "You haven't seen my new trick."  
  
"Does this one involve...squirrels?" Drake asked innocently.  
  
"You _made_ that _up_!" Josh took a moment for another deep breath. "No. This," and he gestured grandly, sweeping his arm as if reading off of an imaginary marquee, "Is my Joshapalooza Handcuffiganza."  
  
"Oh my _God_."  
  
"It's a working title." Josh crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. "Handcuff tricks are the cornerstone of a magician's craft. They always wow a crowd, and this one in par _tic_ ular is foolproof."  
  
"Please!" Drake scoffed, though, in spite of himself, he was a little bit curious. "You can't get a living rabbit out of a hat, and your handcuff whatever is going to suck, too."  
  
"Oh yeah?" Josh lifted his chin defiantly. "Let me prove it."  
  
Drake mimicked his pose. "Go right ahead."  
  
"Fine. Just hold out your arm, and - hey, where are my handcuffs?" Josh bent to look under the table, smoothed his hands over the tablecloth, and tipped the top hat to peer inside before gagging again. “I had them a minute ago…”  
  
Something shiny came flying through the air and hit Josh on the head. He reeled, windmilled his arms, and fell to the floor, taking the grocery bags with him.  
  
Megan stood in the foyer. “Your magic junk was in my way, boob,” she said, folding her arms.  
  
Josh staggered to his feet, holding up the handcuffs. “Well, thank you for returning it in that particularly painful fashion.”  
  
“You’re welcome.” Megan turned on her heel and flounced up the stairs.  
  
Josh shook his head as if to clear the last of the dizziness away, and turned to Drake. “C’mere.”  
  
“Josh, I really don’t think…”  
  
“C’MERE!”  
  
“Okay.” Drake walked over to Josh. “Now what?”  
  
“Hold out your arm.” Josh twirled the handcuffs with a flourish before closing one of the cuffs on Drake’s right wrist. Drake jumped.  
  
“Hey, what are you—“  
  
“Would you relax?” Josh asked. “Trust me.”  
  
“The last time you said that, I ended up dangling off the Golden Gate Bridge by my ankles in a _dress_ ,” Drake pointed out.  
  
“That was _not_ my fault!” Josh brandished the other cuff, and Drake felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.  
  
“Oh, please please please don’t – “  
  
Josh snapped the cuff onto his own left arm.  
  
“…cuff us together,” Drake finished lamely.  
  
"I _said_ relax," Josh said dismissively. He picked up his wand and held out their joined arms. "And now," he announced in a booming voice, as if he was already onstage. "The finale." There was a pregnant pause, and then, "JOSHAKAZAAM!"  
  
Another glorious flourish of the wand, a tap to the cuffs, and:  
  
"Nothing," Drake said. "Awesome."  
  
Josh frowned. "Wait, I guess I didn't tap it on the right spot. I miss sometimes. I'll try it again." Another, slightly more forceful tap. "Joshakazaam!"  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
"Joooooosh," Drake said warningly, jerking at the cuffs.  
  
"Joshakazaam!" Josh hit the cuffs so hard the wand snapped in half. Nothing happened. His face crumpled, chin quivering. "Joshakazaam!" he cried, grabbing Drake by the forearm and shaking him.  
  
“Ow! What are you—hey!” Drake yelled. He grabbed Josh’s shoulder with his free hand. “Josh, stop! It didn’t work, okay? Just take the cuffs off and you can try again when you get a new wand.”  
  
Josh sighed. “Fine.” He clasped Drake’s cuffed hand with his own and pressed something on the cuffs with his free hand, then gave the cuffs a sharp tug. Nothing happened except a sharp pain in Drake’s wrist.  
  
“That’s weird,” Josh said. He grabbed Drake’s hand again and pulled. Nothing except, again, pain.  
  
“Josh, maybe you should—“ Clasp, press, tug, _pain_. “And _oh_ you’re still pulling. Quit it!”  
  
“Well, that’s how you open them!” Josh snapped.  
  
“Well, they’re not _opening_ , are they?” Drake replied. Then his own words hit him. “They’re not opening?” He grabbed Josh’s hand, pressed desperately at where he thought Josh had pressed, and yanked his hand back so hard he heard a small _pop!_ from one of their wrists.  
  
“OW!” Josh yelled.  
  
“Josh, get me out of these cuffs,” Drake demanded, starting to panic.  
  
“Well, I can’t if you break my wrist!” Josh retorted. Then he yanked so hard on the cuffs Drake went flying past him and over the back of the couch.  
  
“WAAAUGH!”  
  
Drake’s motion pulled Josh off balance, and Josh came flying after him. They rolled off of the couch and landed in a tangled, painful heap on the floor.  
  
"Josh, we need to get these off _now_ ," Drake said, looking down into Josh's eyes to emphasize how very, very serious the situation was. It was easy to do; he was on _top_ of Josh. "I have a date tomorrow, _and_ the talent show.”  
  
"And I have my interview," Josh replied. He was already starting to sound panicky.  
  
“So unlock them,” Drake said. “Let’s go get the key.”  
  
“Um.” Josh looked away. “I…kind of… _lsthky_.”  
  
“Enunciate, man!”  
  
“I. Lost. The. Key,” Josh said, squeezing his eyes shut.  
  
“WHAT.”  
  
“It disappeared about a week ago,” Josh explained. “They’re trick handcuffs! I figured I wouldn’t ever really need the key! It’s just for swallowing before the trick and then magically reappearing behind someone’s ear!”  
  
Drake narrowed his eyes, then pinched Josh’s arm. _Hard_.  
  
“Okay, I deserved that.”  
  
"Look, we'll just call a locksmith or something," Drake said, struggling to remain calm. "We'll get him over here and just cut them off."  
  
“You know, locksmiths do not cut locked items exclusively,” Josh said. “Sometimes they also _open_ things. They are not merely destructive forces, like you. Besides,” he added, looking horrified. "We can't cut these cuffs!"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"These are special cuffs. They belonged to MOUDINI!"  
  
"You mean, Houdini?"  
  
"Oh ho ho, Moudini was _far_ greater than Houdini!" Josh scoffed.  
  
“Right. Annnd that’s why I’ve never heard of him.”  
  
“You thought Alexander Hamilton was a baseball player, so I wouldn’t exactly call you Mister Who’s Who!”  
  
“Wait. You mean he’s not?” Drake shook his head. “Look, never mind, okay? Let’s just…figure this out.”  
  
They thought for a minute, Josh scratching his head with his free hand and Drake bumping his chin against Josh’s collarbone until Josh squirmed and pushed his face away.  
  
“Would you stop? I can’t think when you do that.” He frowned, then brightened. “I’ve got it! Megan!”  
  
“Is evil…?”  
  
“No! Well, yes, but evil with a lock picking kit.”  
  
“Oh, hey, that’s right!” Drake attempted to leap to his feet, got about halfway up, and was yanked down again by the cuffs.  
  
“Oof!” Josh grunted as Drake’s face plowed into his solar plexus.  
  
"Ow," Drake said, though he really didn't mean it. Josh was soft, like a pillow. It was kind of nice.  
  
"Come on." Josh pushed at Drake's face, urging him up, and they very carefully stood and dusted themselves off, Josh checking himself over for bruises.  
  
"We good?" Drake asked.  
  
"We're good," Josh agreed. "Shall we?"  
  
"We shall."  
  
"MEGAAAAAAAN!" they called as they clambered up the stairs, knocking each other into walls and railing as they fought their way up. Megan's door, once thrown open, proved too narrow for two boys to enter side-by-side, but there was no time for strategy at a time like this. They tried to force themselves through the doorway.  
  
Megan stood in the middle of her room, looking at them without the barest hint of surprise. "Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?" she asked, sounding bored.  
  
“No, we haven’t!” Drake said, eager to defy her about something, then paused.  
  
Megan and Josh both rolled their eyes, a frustratingly similar gesture. “Megan, we need to borrow your lock picking kit,” Josh said.  
  
Megan looked thoughtful. “Hmm…no.”  
  
“ _Megan_.” Josh held up their cuffed hands. “It’s kind of important.”  
  
“Yeah!” Drake said. “I have a date tomorrow, and a talent show to win. I need two hands for, you know, _strumming_.” He grinned wickedly. “And for playing the guitar, too.”  
  
“Ew!” Megan shuddered, and Josh made a horrible face at him before taking up the argument.  
  
“And _I_ have an interview, and a talent show to beat Drake in. So can we _please_ use your lock picks?”  
  
Megan sat down at her desk and opened her laptop. “Still no.”  
  
“Fine,” Drake spat. “We’ll just tell Mom and Dad that you have lock picks and won’t lend them to us when we _really_ need them, and they’ll…”  
  
“Stop right there, boob,” Megan said. “Let me tell you how that conversation will go. ‘Mooo- _ooom_ , _Wal_ teeeer,’” she said, letting her hair hang down in front of her eyes. “’Megan won’t get us out of another stupid situation we got ourselves in, even though my hair is _really shiny_!’”  
  
Josh snickered.  
  
“I don’t get it,” Drake said. “Is that supposed to be Josh?”  
  
Megan ignored him. “’Well, boys, what do you need?’” she said boisterously, in an excellent imitation of Walter. “’Oh, Megan has _lock picks_ and she won’t let us _use them_!’” That was obviously Josh. “’You expect us to believe that that sweet little girl has a kit of lock picks?’” That was Audrey. “’Boys, I can’t believe you would use this situation to make up such ridiculous stories about your baby sister! You’re grounded for five months!’” She crossed her arms and looked at them triumphantly.  
  
“That is how it would go,” Josh muttered, his breath tickling Drake’s ear.  
  
“Yeah, yeah.” Drake scowled.  
  
“Look, Megan,” Josh tried. “Can’t you look into that bitter little heart of yours and find some sympathy for your poor big brothers who love you?”  
  
“We do?” Drake asked.  
  
Josh elbowed him in the ribs. Handcuffed together, it was pretty easy to do.  
  
Megan glanced at Drake, as poker-faced as ever. "Huh. Sorry to hear you say that, Drake - I was just about to give you my lock picks."  
  
"You were?" Drake asked.  
  
"Ha, no." She shook her head. "Boob. Now get out of my room, or I'm going to start screaming."  
  
"Megan, have a heart," Josh pleaded.  
  
Drake snorted. "If you think Megan has a heart, you're obviously not ready for college. Face it, Josh, we need to call a locksmith."  
  
"But Moudini - "  
  
"My _date_ is not going to care about Moudini when I show up with you attached to me, and I don't think your internship guy is going to either."  
  
Josh sighed. “Fine. Anyway, maybe a locksmith can open them without damaging them.”  
  
“Probably not,” Megan chirped without looking up from her laptop.  
  
“I’m not _talking_ to you,” Josh hissed.  
  
Megan tossed her hair. “Promises, promises.”  
  
“Come on,” said Drake. They turned, with some difficulty – and immediately got stuck in the door again. “Aw, _man_.”


	2. Tacos and Tension

Twenty minutes later, Drake hurled the phone book at the wall. "How can every single locksmith in town be at a locksmith convention in Kalamazoo, Michigan?"  
  
"Curse those sociable locksmiths!" Josh growled, shaking his fist. Unfortunately, it was the fist attached to Drake, and the shaking of it caused Drake to wobble like a drunken marionette.  
  
"Okay, stop!" Drake said, grabbing Josh’s arm with his free hand. "What about the power saw? We can cut the cuffs off!"  
  
"You need two hands to operate the power saw, and I don’t think one of yours and one of mine is the steadiest combo," Josh objected. "We could ask Megan to do it..." Drake stared at him. "Okay, no. How about Dad?"  
  
Drake shook his head. "Dad pokes himself in the eye just using a comb. Do we really want him coming at us with a power saw?"  
  
"He only did that one time!"  
  
Drake just looked at him.  
  
"...seven times."  
  
"So, no. And I don't think Mom can handle one by herself."  
  
"Craig and Eric?"  
  
"They couldn't handle one _together_. Maybe Helen?"  
  
Josh laughed bitterly. "She'd cut off my arm just to make it easier for you. Mindy?"  
  
"So _she_ can cut off _my_ arm?"  
  
"We're broken up!"  
  
"Then just for fun." Drake scratched his head restlessly, and since his hand was already up there, Josh scratched, too. "Are you sure you need that hand?"  
  
"Yes, I need that hand," Josh snapped. He jerked his - their - hands away. "Did they say when the convention's over?"  
  
"Not 'til Sunday night. I think we're screwed."  
  
"Yeah." Josh sighed. "I guess you'll just to come to my interview with me."  
  
Drake frowned. "Time out," he said, forming a T with his hands. Josh helplesly smacked him in the chest. "Isn't my date at the same time as your interview?"  
  
"Yeah, but - "  
  
"Then no way. Just reschedule your interview."  
  
"I can't reschedule!" Josh exclaimed. "It's too late! You reschedule your date."  
  
"Do you know how long I've been waiting to go out with this girl?" Drake asked incredulously. "It's April Magursky - she practically has a waiting list!"  
  
"So do _you_."  
  
"Exactly! It took us forever to match up our schedules!"  
  
Josh threw his hands up in the air, pulling Drake’s arm with him. Since he was taller than Drake, this nearly hauled Drake off his feet. "Look, what do you want me to do? The guy I’m interviewing with is leaving the country on Sunday, and he won’t be back for a month. It has to be tomorrow."  
  
"And so does my _date_ ," Drake insisted. He sort of hoped Josh would give up and decide not to go to the interview at all, but he didn't really see that happening. "And we can’t be in two places at the same time."  
  
Josh attempted to rub his chin with his left hand, but left off when Drake smacked him in the nose. "Maybe not...but we _can_ be in _one_ place at the same time."  
  
Drake looked at him warily. "Meaning...?"  
  
"My interview is in the Bayside Building downtown."  
  
"So...?"  
  
"It’s a lunch date, right?" Drake nodded. "Take her to the Bayside Bistro on the first floor! That way we’ll at least be in the same building."  
  
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Drake spread his hands, Josh’s left trailing along after him. "I can’t afford to take April _there_."  
  
"I'll split the cost with you," Josh said.  
  
"I still can't afford it."  
  
Josh closed his eyes for a second and took another deep breath. He had to do that a lot. Drake wondered if it had to do with his asthma.   
  
"I'll pay," Josh said, slowly and with great effort.  
  
"You will?" Drake raised his eyebrows and grinned. "Great! If I take April to a place like the Bayside Bistro, then she'll have to feel grateful. If you know what I mean." He nudged Josh in the side with his elbow, or tried to; he ended up nudging him in the forearm instead.  
  
"I know what you mean," Josh said, sounding disgusted. "But how, pray tell, is she supposed to 'feel grateful' with me handcuffed to you?"  
  
"Hey, I don't mind if you watch," Drake said before he could think about it.   
  
For once in his life, he really wished he had. There was an awkward silence.  
  
"You know, people _already_ think we spend too much time together," Josh finally said.  
  
"Well, uh. I guess this won’t help, then, huh?" Drake asked weakly, holding up their cuffed hands.  
  
"Drake! Josh! Dinner!" Audrey called, to Drake’s great relief.  
  
Fortunately, Walter and Audrey were only slightly fazed by Drake and Josh’s new accessory, and Audrey agreed that it was probably best that Walter not attempt to use the power saw, resulting in an indignant "Hey!" from Walter. Unfortunately, dinner was tacos, and tacos, Drake discovered that night, were a food that really necessitated the full use of both hands.  
  
"Mmm, great tacos, Mom," Josh said, piling cheese onto one of his.  
  
"Yeah, thanks, Mom," Drake agreed, and attempted to take a bite of his own overstuffed taco. Josh’s hand, scooping shredded cheese from a bowl, held him back, so he tugged – and the spoon went flying, sending cheese over the table and into everyone’s hair. Drake’s elbow hit the bowl of cheese, which tumbled to the floor and broke.  
  
"Aw, man!" Josh said, and yanked on their cuffed hands, causing Drake to smear his taco across his right cheek.  
  
"Dude!" Drake protested.  
  
Josh indicated the fallen cheese bowl. "Look what you did. You know how I feel about cheese!"  
  
"The _world_ knows how you feel about cheese," Megan muttered.  
  
"Well, look at my face," Drake shot back. "If this taco sauce makes me break out before my date, I'll - "  
  
"Oh, I'll break something." Josh lifted both fists in front of his face, like an old-time boxer, which yanked Drake out of his chair and face-first into Josh's lap.  
  
"Boys!" Audrey cried. "If you're going to fight like this, maybe you should eat something less complicated."  
  
"But - tacos!" Josh whined.  
  
"Tacos," came the muffled echo from Josh's lap. Josh shoved at Drake's shoulder, pushing him up and away.  
  
Audrey sighed. "Walter, what do you think?"  
  
Walter looked up from his plate, smiled, and gave her a thumbs-up. "Great tacos, dear," he said, mouth full.  
  
She rolled her eyes. Everyone said Drake looked just like her, but at that moment, all she'd have to say was, "Boob," and she'd be Megan's double.  
  
Instead, she told the boys, "If I get one more shred of cheese in my hair tonight, taco time is over for you two. Understand?"  
  
"Yes," the boys said in dull monotone.  
  
Josh reached for his taco with his right hand, and Drake, after a moment's consideration, opted to try to eat with his left. He picked up his taco, aimed, and completely missed his mouth, feeding his cheek instead.  
  
He whimpered, and Josh turned to look at him. For a moment Josh seemed to be arguing with himself; then he sighed, picked up Drake’s taco in his right hand, and guided it towards Drake’s mouth.  
  
Drake took a big, hearty bite, and wriggled happily in his chair.  
  
"Yeah, yeah," Josh said, and rolled his eyes, but he didn’t look that annoyed.  
  
***  
  
After dinner, Drake and Josh made their way carefully back up the stairs to their room.  
  
"Okay, let’s go get my guitar," Drake said, heading for his bed. Josh didn’t move, and Drake was thrown off balance and fell to his knees.  
  
"Dude, we have homework," Josh said.  
  
"It’s Friday night!"  
  
"Exactly. If we get it done now, we won’t have to worry about it all weekend. And considering everything else we’ve got to worry about..." Josh trailed off significantly.  
  
"Look, we’ll sit on the couch and work at the coffee table," Drake said. "You’re righthanded, right? So do your homework with your right hand, and let me play with your left."  
  
Josh blinked. "You gotta stop saying stuff like that, Drake."  
  
"Say what?" Drake asked, jumping to his feet. He stumbled a little and had to use Josh to regain his balance.  
  
"Nothing," Josh said with a sigh. "Look, it's not going to work."  
  
"Let's just try it, okay?"  
  
Reluctantly, Josh let himself be led to Drake's bed. They looked up at it; lofted, it suddenly looked as imposing as Everest, and twice as difficult to climb.  
  
"Okay, no big deal," Drake said, though he wasn't feeling his words. "My guitar's near the edge. Just follow me."  
  
"Drake, why couldn't you have just used Betsy?" Josh asked. "Or that guitar?" He pointed to one propped up in the corner. "Or that one...or - okay, seriously, do you really need like nineteen guitars?"  
  
"The one I'm going to use in the talent show is on my bed. Besides, I like my guitars like I like my girls," Drake said.  
  
"Overabundant?"  
  
"I don't know what that means, but lots of them!"  
  
"Just get up the stupid ladder," Josh hissed.  
  
Drake nodded and stepped onto the first rung of the ladder. All Josh had to do with raise his wrist a little. So far, so good. Another step, and Josh had to edge closer. Two more steps, and Josh's arm was over his head, but at least Drake could see the guitar.  
  
"Here it is," he said. He reached out for it, and Josh was pulled forward with a distressed, "Augh!" His face clanged against the rungs, and he stumbled backward, pulling Drake with him.  
  
"Trixie!" Drake yelped, cradling the guitar. He crashed into Josh, and they both fell to the floor, Josh breaking Drake's fall, and Drake breaking Trixie's.  
  
"Mmmrph," Josh said into Drake’s hair. "Ow."  
  
"Wait, no, this might work!" Drake said. He adjusted Trixie and gave her an experimental strum. Josh’s arm had to wrap around his body to make it work, but Drake could play well enough. Plus, he was actually pretty comfortable. "We’ll just do it like this."  
  
"Drake, get off of me," Josh muttered.  
  
"Oh, fine." Drake rolled off of Josh and they managed to get to their feet. They collected Josh’s homework and arranged themselves on the couch, Drake with his amp in easy reach, Josh with about a dozen textbooks, his laptop, three notebooks, and the most complicated-looking calculator Drake had ever seen. Josh opened a calculus textbook and started on some problems.  
  
Drake played a few chords, Josh’s left hand flopping like dead weight as he did so. "And where have you been since it’s been over?" he sang softly. "Over my shoulder, under my skin…Will you ever return again?"  
  
He looked up. Josh was staring at him.   
  
"What?"  
  
Josh blinked and looked down at his hand, dangling from Drake’s. "Yeah, this isn’t going to work."  
  
"What, do you think it should rhyme?" Drake asked anxiously. "I tried, but the only thing I could rhyme with 'over' was 'Land Rover,' and 'under my Land Rover' didn't really sound - "  
  
"Not that," Josh snapped. "You with the guitar, me with the homework. _That's_ not working."  
  
"You haven't even tried!"  
  
"Well, it's kind of hard to concentrate with you warbling in my ear!"  
  
Drake wasn't sure was warble meant - he was pretty sure it was what you did with mouthwash in the morning - but he knew it wasn't good.   
  
"I'm not warbling!" he protested.  
  
"Serenading me, then!"  
  
"You wish!" Drake shook his head. "Look, what do you expect me to do? I need to practice for the show."  
  
"Oh, you're fine."  
  
"I helped _you_ practice."  
  
"And practicing turned out so great!" Josh flung his hands into the air for emphasis, and Drake's left came along for the ride.  
  
"Maybe you should just take this as a sign that your magic is going to bomb at the talent show and I’m going to be $500 richer," Drake suggested.  
  
"Hey! You wanna tussle?!" Josh barked, putting his fists up again, causing Drake to face-plant into Josh’s lap for the second time that day.  
  
In the end they compromised and watched TV, while Josh scratched notes for a paper with his right hand and let his left trail after Drake’s as Drake jotted down lyric ideas. They wound up stumbling across a marathon of those old kung fu movies Craig and Eric loved so much and finding themselves bizarrely enthralled, which Drake refused to take as a sign that he had anything in common with Craig and Eric. The rest of the house had long since called their "good nights" into the boys’ bedroom door by the time Josh yawned and stretched, which pulled Drake bonelessly against him.  
  
"Must be late,” Josh said, glancing over at the clock. "Whoa, it’s nearly three. We should get to bed so that we can try and figure out what to do about these cuffs in the morning."  
  
"Saturday has mornings?" Drake asked, bemused.  
  
Josh rolled his eyes. "Will wonders never cease?"  
  
He turned off the TV, and the boys stood, turned, and attempted to go to their respective beds. The cuffs held firm between them.  
  
"Uh oh," Josh said.  
  
As usual, Drake didn't catch on as quickly. "What?"  
  
"Where are we going to sleep? I mean..." Josh waved a hand vaguely to their enjoined hands.  
  
"Oh." Drake tugged their hands, a pointless gesture. "I guess we have to..."  
  
"Uh huh."  
  
Drake thought of Josh's soft pillow boy body for a second.  
  
"Well, guess we gotta," he said with a shrug. "Come on." He tugged again, urging Josh toward his bed.  
  
"Nuh-uh!" Josh shook his head. "We're not sleeping up there."  
  
"What? You've always wanted my bed."  
  
"That sounds...off."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Never mind. Look," Josh said, gesturing toward the loft. "You saw what happened when you went up there to get your guitar. If we try to go all the way up there, and down again in the morning, one of us is probably going to get killed. And since you keep landing on me, I don't think I have very good odds."  
  
"So we’re sleeping in your bed?" Drake asked. Josh nodded. "Can I use Mr. Puff Puff?"  
  
"No! Get your own pillow."  
  
"Killjoy."  
  
They walked over to Drake’s bed, where by standing on his toes, Josh could just reach one of Drake’s pillows.  
  
"Hey, grab my pajamas for me too, would ya?" Drake asked.  
  
Josh groped blindly about on the mattress. "You don’t have anything gross up here, do you? Like a three-day-old burrito or something?"  
  
"How would I manage that when you clean our room three times a day?"  
  
"I’ve learned not to underestimate you. Ah, here we go." Josh pulled Drake’s pajamas down off the loft bed.  
  
"Thanks." Drake kicked off his shoes, then waited.  
  
"What?" Josh asked finally.  
  
"You gonna stand there while I change? Go somewhere else."  
  
"And how do you propose I do that?" Josh asked, lifting his left hand so that Drake’s right came trailing after.  
  
"Oh, right, I forgot. Well...just don’t look, okay?"  
  
"I thought you didn’t mind if I watched," Josh muttered, but he turned his face away and closed his eyes.  
  
Drake moved his hands to his belt buckle. Josh’s hand, dangling in the cuffs, bumped gently into Drake’s crotch. Drake jumped, but rather than bring Josh’s attention to the matter and cause _more_ embarrassment, he simply undid his belt and fly as fast as possible and slithered out of his jeans. For the first time, he regretted his preference for tight pants; wiggling out of them required thorough use of both hands, and Josh’s fingers swung willy-nilly across Drake’s pelvis and thighs.  
  
Finally, Drake was able to kick away his pants, standing in just socks, shirt, and shorts. Connected to fully clothed Josh, he felt cold...and pantless.  
  
"How are we going to get our shirts off?" he wondered as he toed off his socks. He wobbled a little, losing balance, and grabbed onto Josh's shoulder to upright himself.  
  
Josh frowned and opened his eyes. "I don't know." He looked down. "You have big knees."  
  
"I said don't look!" Drake yelped, attempting to cover his crotch, but that only brought Josh's hand in close proximity again.   
  
"Come on, we've peed together," Josh said impatiently. "What's the big deal?"  
  
"It's just different," Drake said, pulling his pajama pants on as quickly as possible. "That's bathroom naked. Bedroom naked is a whole other thing."  
  
"Fine, whatever. Sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities, ma'am. And I don't know how we're going to get our shirts off," Josh added. "I guess we just have to sleep in them. We can figure it out tomorrow." His hand strayed to his own fly, and he glanced sidelong at Drake. "Now you look away."  
  
Drake did, but not looking didn't make it feel any less naked. As Josh set about undoing his own jeans, Drake's knuckles grazed the bare, warm skin of Josh's belly and hips. It was really soft, almost like a girl's, and that was sort of disconcerting to think about. In fact, he didn't want to think it - he could feel his face heat up at the idea, and to distract them both, he dug his thumb a little into Josh's stomach, tickling him.  
  
Bad idea. Josh, who, as Drake well knew, was hyper-sensitively ticklish, doubled over, squealing like a pig. Now Drake’s hand was trapped in the crease between Josh’s hip and thigh, where it was entirely too warm and Josh’s boxers were entirely too thin. He tried to elbow Josh in the ribs, but he had no leverage and just caused his hand to slide around Josh’s upper thigh.  
  
Josh straightened up, to Drake’s immense relief, and jabbed a finger into Drake’s side, which caused Drake to smack himself in the stomach. "Quit it!"  
  
"You quit it!" Drake replied unreasonably, and poked Josh back. Josh squealed again and gave Drake a little shove.  
  
Drake shoved Josh back, harder than was probably necessary, and since Josh’s jeans were still around his knees Josh stumbled and fell flat on his back, pulling Drake down with him.  
  
Drake expected Josh to shove him off, or to bewail the situation with a “Why do I keep falling down?” but he didn’t. He just lay there, staring at Drake like a deer in headlights, his chest rising and falling a little faster than perhaps it should have. Drake could feel Josh’s exhalations against his nose.  
  
Josh licked his lips.  
  
"Uh," Drake said, then paused to consider what to say next. 'Uh' was basically all he had. 'We're too old to wrestle,' was what he thought he _should_ say, but he really, really didn't want to.  
  
Josh started leaning forward, easing himself up slowly, onto his elbows. He licked his lips again, face just an inch or two from Drake's. He swallowed, and Drake could see his Adam's apple bob.  
  
"Uh," Drake tried again. It wasn't any more convincing the second time around.  
  
Josh's mouth quirked. Drake's heart started to pound.  
  
Josh reached around and tickled Drake's side.  
  
Drake didn't know what he'd expected, but that wasn't it. He was...relieved, he guessed.  
  
"Ah!" Drake cried out intelligently, laughing and yelling at the same time. He arched his back, trying to escape Josh's fingers, and rolled off him.  
  
"Now quit ticklin’ me," Josh said, sitting up and wriggling the rest of the way out of his jeans. He had a bit of a triumphant smirk on his face, and if he looked a little more flushed than normal, well, it was probably from all the falling down.  
  
Teeth-brushing was a complicated affair that led to more toothpaste in Drake’s ear than he was really comfortable with, but finally they were ready for bed. He and Josh stood at the foot of Josh’s bed and stared at it. For the first time, Drake noticed how very, very small Josh’s bed was. It was definitely too small for two people to sleep on unless they slept very close together.  
  
"Maybe we should sleep on the floor?" he suggested, holding his pillow in front of him like a shield.  
  
"Can’t. Lumbar problems, remember?" Josh replied, his free hand straying to his back.  
  
"Oh, right. Well, which side do you want?"  
  
Josh gave the cuffs a jingle. "I don’t think we have much choice."  
  
"Oh, yeah."  
  
Drake tossed the pillow onto the left side of the bed and climbed in. Josh sat down on the right side, picked up his alarm clock, and set it, then shut off the lights and slid under the blankets.  
  
"Night, Drake."  
  
"Night, Josh."  
  
***  
  
It turned out that Josh radiated heat like a furnace. It got hot enough that it woke Drake up after just a little while. He had to kick away the blankets, vaguely irritated by it, and for half a second wished that he'd just gone to bed in his boxers.  
  
Apparently it wasn't too bad, though, because he got back to sleep easily enough.  
  
The next time he woke up, it was light out, and Josh was spooning him.  
  
It wasn't like they hadn't spooned before - it just sort of _happened_ when they slept in close proximity - but since they were handcuffed together, it wasn't exactly the easiest position to drift into. They'd definitely managed, though. Drake's arm was twisting behind him, their cuffed hands smushed between his back and Josh's belly, and there was that soft skin again, where Josh's shirt had hitched up. Josh's free hand was flopped over Drake's middle, limp, and his mouth was close to Drake's ear, snoring softly.  
  
Drake was now very much awake. He squinted to make out the time on the clock across the room - they still had over an hour before they needed to get up. He really needed the extra sleep.  
  
His breathing was slightly out of time with Josh's. He could feel every inhalation, the gentle sighs of his exhalations. Breath right next to Drake's _ear_. He tried to shift away slightly, but Josh came with him, foot crossing over Drake's ankles and rubbing lightly.  
  
Yeah, sleep wasn't coming.


	3. Sorry Doesn't Sweeten My Pancakes

By studying the patterns the sunlight made as it slowly crossed the floor of their room, Drake managed to put himself into a semi-conscious doze. He was just thinking that Josh still smelled vaguely like the spices in the tacos they’d had last night, and how much he liked tacos, and wondering if Josh tasted like tacos too, when the alarm went off.  
  
Josh shot straight out of bed, and then – Drake should have predicted this – tumbled to the floor, pulling Drake down with him.  
  
“Morning,” Drake muttered into Josh’s armpit.  
  
There was a pause as Josh lifted his head to survey the situation; then the cuffs clinked as Josh raised his left hand and Drake’s came trailing after. “Oh,” Josh said. “Right.” His head hit the floor again with a thump.  
  
They took turns peeing while the other faced resolutely away, and brushed their teeth, this time with less mishap. Showers, they agreed, could wait for after they got the cuffs off, and besides Drake’s stomach was growling, and he was close enough to hear Josh’s doing the same. A delicious smell was floating up from the kitchen, and they practically tumbled down the stairs as they rushed down to breakfast.  
  
Walter was flipping pancakes as they walked into the kitchen, and Drake sighed with contentment. Walter wasn’t much of a cook – that was why Josh had become so good at it, to counterbalance his dad’s uncanny inability to boil water – but he made a mean flapjack. Audrey pushed cups of coffee into their hands.  
  
“We decided to treat you boys,” she explained. “Since you’re…temporarily conjoined.”  
  
“Thanks, Mom, Dad!” Josh said, kissing Audrey’s cheek.  
  
“Yeah, thanks,” Drake agreed, kissing Audrey’s other cheek.  
  
They sat down at the table, Drake reaching for the sugar bowl and dumping roughly half of its contents into his coffee mug. Josh sipped his black and shook his head disapprovingly at the philistine next to him.  
  
"Do you really need _that_ much sugar?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah," Drake said. "So I don't taste the coffee."  
  
"If you don't like coffee, then why don't you just have the sugar?"  
  
"Please, that'd be disgusting," Drake scoffed. He took a testing sip from his mug, then dumped the rest of the sugar into it.  
  
"Yeah, that'd be just ridiculous," Josh said, rolling his eyes.  
  
"Speaking of sugar," Walter said as he pawed through a cabinet. "It looks like we're out of syrup. Boys, would you run out to the garage and get that tub of syrup we got at CostClub?"  
  
"Sure, Dad," Josh said. He stood, jerking Drake up with him. Coffee sloshed in Drake's mug, nearly spilling.  
  
"Hey, watch it!" Drake said. "You could've gotten some on me." He set the mug down on the table and smoothed his shirt primly.  
  
“Yes, because it would be a shame if the shirt you’ve been wearing for the past 24 hours got dirty,” Josh drawled.  
  
“There’s no need to be snippy,” Drake shot back. He caught a glimpse of their parents rolling their eyes as he and Josh headed for the garage.  
  
The syrup tub was in the back of the garage, under the giant bag of sheep food they hadn’t been able to get rid of after they gave Megan’s sheep away. It was heavy and massive, but between them the boys could lift it. Drake could feel the syrup sloshing around in the tub as they headed for the garage door.  
  
“Hey, hold your end up better,” he said, backing up. “I don’t want this thing to spill.”  
  
“I’m holding fine,” Josh said. “You’re the one who’s wobbling all over the place.”  
  
“Am not!”  
  
“Are too, you wobbler!”  
  
Wobbler! Stupid Josh and his big, stupid college words. Drake realized as he was doing it that kicking Josh was probably not the best idea, under the circumstances, but like picking the argument in the first place, he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He twisted around and kicked Josh in the rear, but Josh had never really been great with the whole balancing thing. Josh tripped, Drake staggered forward, the syrup tub collided with the garage door frame, and suddenly they were flat on their backs with ten gallons of Vermont maple syrup flooding over them.  
  
In a state of shock, they lay in the pool of syrup, staring up at the ceiling and blinking rapidly so their eyelashes wouldn't stick together.  
  
It was Josh who broke the silence, with a small, broken, "Oh."  
  
Gingerly, Drake sat up. He could feel the globs of syrup slide off his face, down his arms, dripping goopily on the garage floor.  
  
"Sticky," Josh moaned.  
  
Drake rubbed at his eyes, but since there was syrup on his hand, it didn't do much good to clear them.  
  
"Sweet..."  
  
Drake glanced down at Josh, still lying motionless, with a horrified look on his face. Drake leaned over him and - there went the not-thinking thing again – licked a small stripe up Josh's neck.  
  
"You taste like Vermont," he said, unaccountably pleased.  
  
That seemed to bring Josh to life, struggling to sit up as his limbs flailed.  
  
"Get offa me!" he yelled. His voice always deepened with frustration and anger. Drake kind of liked it.  
  
They tried to stand up, but they were sticky and slippery and, oh yeah, still handcuffed together, and every attempt to stand just led to them falling back down into a syrupy pile on the floor. Josh continued to splutter angrily as they skidded across the cement and tangled around each other.  
  
“Boys?”  
  
Walter, Audrey, and Megan stood on the doorway of the garage, staring at them. Megan took a moment to take the situation in; then she pressed her lips together in a thin line and walked calmly away. A minute later they heard gales of laughter erupt from the living room.  
  
“We heard yelling and crashing. Well, more yelling and crashing than usual,” Audrey said. “What did you…how did you…what happened?”  
  
“It was his fault!” Drake and Josh yelled simultaneously, pointing their free hands at each other and punctuating the accusation by falling down again.  
  
Walter sighed. “I’ll go get the hose.”  
  
  
  
After a good twenty minutes with the hose going full blast, Drake and Josh were de-syrupified enough to at least walk, but syrup was still making their hair stand up in stiff peaks, and oozing into places Drake really didn’t want Walter spraying with the hose. Plus, the water was _cold_ , and neither boy could stop shivering.  
  
“You’ll have to take a shower,” Walter said finally, turning off the hose.  
  
Drake and Josh looked at each other. “Together?” Josh asked.  
  
“I don’t think so!” Drake said.  
  
Walter failed to look sympathetic. “You’ll have to figure that out. _I_ am going to go eat some pancakes.”  
  
Walter turned and went back in the house, but Audrey stayed long enough to ask, "Well, are you going to want to go your interview like that, Josh? Or your date, Drake?"  
  
The boys looked at each other silently.  
  
"Besides, you're both guys," she added. "No big deal, right?"  
  
The boys looked away.  
  
She sighed. "Whatever. I'm going to go have some pancakes too."  
  
Alone again in the silent garage, they considered their options. Well, maybe Josh was still considering. Drake had already decided - he didn't like syrup in his crevices.  
  
"Well, I guess we have to," Josh finally said. He sounded uncomfortable.  
  
"Yeah, I guess," Drake agreed. He thought he sounded a little too casual.  
  
Josh nodded needlessly, and walking very carefully, to minimize drippage, they went back into the house and headed up the stairs, to their bathroom.  
  
“Let’s go to our room first,” Josh said.  
  
“W-w-why?” Drake said, shivering so hard his teeth chattered.  
  
“Scissors. It’s the only way we’ll get out of these shirts.”  
  
“Aw, man, I like this shirt,” Drake complained, but Josh was right. Besides, after being soaked in syrup the shirt was probably a lost cause anyway.  
  
In the bathroom, Josh carefully cut up the side of Drake’s shirt and down the bottom of his sleeve. Drake pulled the shirt over his head and other arm and let it fall into a sodden heap on the floor, then watched, feeling cold and naked, as Josh cut his own shirt off. It was hardly the first time Drake and Josh had been shirtless together, but looking at Josh as he toed his socks off, Drake realized that the pudgy boy who’d moved into his room nearly four years ago had become a very nicely-put-together young man. Josh’s chest was broader than Drake’s, and in the past year a dusting of dark hair had appeared. Smears of syrup gave his skin a light golden sheen, and his nipples had hardened against the cold.  
  
Josh raised an eyebrow at Drake, and Drake realized he was staring. “Uh. I’ll, um. Turn the water on.” He eased over to the shower and put the hot water on full blast, although with the way his thoughts were tending, a cold shower might have been a better idea.  
  
He turned back to Josh, both standing stiffly and staring over the other's shoulder. Neither made a move to finish undressing. Josh, in fact, had his free hand poised protectively in front of his drawstring.  
  
"You first," Josh said.  
  
Drake shook his head. " _You_ first."  
  
"No way!"  
  
"Let's do it at the same time."  
  
"I don't think we can," Josh said, and he shook the cuffs for emphasis.  
  
"Oh yeah." Drake pursed his lips, considering whether this shower was really necessary. Maybe April would turn out to be a big syrup junkie and want to lick it all off him. That'd be cool, but for some reason, his heart wasn't really into the idea. Besides, there was maple in his ears.  
  
"Fine," he muttered. Drake looked down to concentrate on his disrobing. He knew Josh's hand was coming along with his own, so he tried to be careful about it, but there was still some uneasy touching as he shimmied out of his pants. Down to his boxers, and he tried to get out of those with just his left hand, but it wasn't working; the right had to come into play. Josh's knuckles grazed his hip.  
  
The cuffs clinked restlessly the whole time. Someone's hand was shaking, but Drake wasn't actually sure whose.  
  
The _thwump_ of cloth hitting the floor sounded unnaturally loud, even to his syrup-clogged ears. Now totally naked, Drake looked over at Josh, who had his chin lifted and his head turned away.  
  
“Your turn.”  
  
Josh looked as if he wanted to sink into the steam that was filling the room, but instead he shut his eyes resolutely and started to untie the drawstring of his pants. Drake watched Josh’s face as his fingers bumped the soft skin between Josh’s hipbones, as Josh’s color heightened and a muscle jumped in his cheek.  
  
“All right,” Josh said finally. “Let’s get in the shower.” He opened his eyes to see where he was going, and Drake quickly averted his gaze.  
  
There they were, both completely naked, knuckles grazing with each stride, and there was nowhere Drake could look – not at himself, not at Josh’s face, certainly not at anywhere _else_ on Josh. He pushed the shower curtain aside and stepped in, feeling Josh follow him, and thanked God their shower was a relatively big one, with enough room for them both to stand and not be pressed up against each other.  
  
The water that hit his skin was hot, and Drake jumped back instinctively – directly into Josh.  
  
"Aaaa!" Drake screamed.  
  
"Augh!" Josh screeched. He quickly shoved Drake away.  
  
"Aaaa!" Drake screamed as his feet started to slip in the wet, narrow space.  
  
"Augh!" Josh screeched as the cuffs tugged on his wrist and made him start to slide as well.  
  
"Aaaa!" Drake screamed, and he stuck out both arms to brace himself on the tiled walls of the shower.  
  
They both managed to stop sliding, but Josh added a small, "Augh," for good measure.  
  
"Let's not do that again," Drake said.  
  
"Agreed."  
  
The stood up slowly, making sure they had their footing. Somehow, their near-miss had lightened the tension, and they were able to get to business. Drake grabbed a washcloth and started cleaning his ears. Josh, meanwhile, had picked up a shampoo bottle and  
managed to squeeze some into his palm. He wiped it onto the top of his head, then seemed to hesitate. He glanced at Drake, then away quickly.  
  
"I need both hands to - " he began to explain.  
  
"It's cool," Drake said.  
  
Josh nodded, and raised his hands - and Drake's – to massage his scalp. Josh had more hair than Drake did, thicker, so it took a little while. Drake's shoulder was beginning to ache when Josh stopped and leaned forward, ducking his head until the stream of water to rinse.  
  
He was in Drake's personal space again, but it wasn't like Drake could blame him. There just wasn't anywhere else to go. He watched him absently, neck bowed under the water, hands smoothing his wet curls, back muscles just tense enough to be noticeable. Josh's hair had gotten longer recently, even more so when wet, and when he stood up, satisfied that the rinse was thorough, his hair was in his eyes.  
  
Drake reached up and smoothed Josh's hair from his forehead, revealing wide, confused eyes.  
  
"Don't - you don't want water in your eyes," Drake said by way of explanation, feeling self-conscious.  
  
“Oh.” Josh’s voice was barely audible. “Thanks.” He passed the shampoo bottle to Drake. “You can use my hand.”  
  
Drake nodded, and hoped Josh would assume the flush of his cheeks was from the heat of the shower. He squeezed a dollop of shampoo into his palm and began lathering up his own hair, shutting his eyes to keep from getting shampoo in them. It didn’t take as long as Josh’s hair took, but it took a fair amount of time, considering the amount of syrup that was coated in the strands. Drake was _not_ going on a date with sticky hair.  
  
Above the drumming of the water on slick skin and slicker floor, Drake could hear Josh humming, and he felt a rush of pleasure as he recognized one of his own melodies. He smiled as he stuck his head under the water to rinse out the shampoo, then made a face and spat as soap found its way into his open mouth.  
  
When he was sure all the soap was gone, Drake pulled his head out of the spray, gave it a quick shake to get some excess water off, and opened his eyes.  
  
He probably should have straightened up first.  
  
Drake found himself staring directly at Josh’s crotch. Well, really at both of their crotches, which was even _worse_ than just seeing Josh’s, because that just reminded him of how very close and naked and, oh yeah, _wet_ they both were, and what people usually did with each other’s crotches when they were this close and this naked and (occasionally) this wet.  
  
His sole consolation was that at least now he knew he wasn’t the only one affected by their proximity.  
  
On a certain level, Drake knew that he was seventeen years old, that his hormones were raging, and that being in a shower with another person was a sure way to make said hormones sit up and dance the paso doble, even if that other person was his extremely male stepbrother.  
  
On another level, however, Drake was pretty sure that he wanted to live _past_ the age of seventeen, which wouldn’t happen if he died of embarrassment. And so he did the only sensible thing he could.  
  
He panicked.  
  
"We're good, right?" he asked as he stood up straight. His voice was a little higher than it normally was. "Shower done?"  
  
"Yeah, I think so," Josh agreed quickly, nodding eagerly. He reached out and shut off the water. Water curled down from his hair and onto his chest, standing out in glistening drops. Drake blinked several times and had to fight the urge to look down again. He really hoped Josh wouldn't either.  
  
"You get out first."  
  
" _You_ get out first."  
  
"I got in first!"  
  
Josh frowned, but nodded again. Carefully, he stepped out of the shower, and Drake trailed after him, vaguely thankful for the addition of a bathmat to the smooth, perilous floor.  
  
They toweled themselves off silently, looking away from each other. Drake's skin was tacky from where there were still a few spots of syrup, the result of the aborted shower, but he was using Megan's towel, so he didn't really care if he messed it up.  
  
Wrapping towels around their waists, they shuffled into their room. Putting pants on wasn’t as much of a relief as it should have been, since Drake’s jeans were all very tight and he really needed a little extra breathing room right now. Still, at least now he could look at Josh.  
  
Then again, he thought as he watched Josh towel off his hair, stomach flat and stretched with a thin trail of dark hair disappearing beneath Josh’s waistband and reminding Drake of things he should never have seen, it would be nice if Josh could put on a shirt. In fact, it would be nice if Josh could put on a muumuu, or maybe a biohazard suit. Maybe then Drake’s heart rate could return to normal.  
  
“Okay, let’s think this through,” Josh said. “No sense cutting up more shirts to put on until we’re absolutely sure we have to.”  
  
Damn. “Good point. Okay, so Megan won’t let us use her lockpicks, we can’t cut the cuffs off, and all of the locksmiths in the greater San Diego area are currently at the Kalamazoo Marriott.”  
  
“I _hate_ the Kalamazoo Marriott,” Josh muttered.  
  
Drake looked at his wrist, which was beginning to redden from all the bumping and chafing of the cuff. “Maybe we can slip our hands out if we, like, grease them up? With Vaseline or lotion something?” He tried not think of the other uses of such things.  
  
Josh shook his head. “Too messy. I don’t want to wind up having to shower together again, do you?”  
  
“ _No._ ”  
  
“So we’re agreed,” Josh said. “All we can do is deal, so deal we shall.”  
  
Drake nodded. It’d be all right, he figured. They’d been through worse before, and things always turned out all…  
  
Right. They were screwed.


	4. Bayside Ballyhoo

A few hours later, the boys stood in front of the Bayside Building, looking a little shell-shocked.  
  
"So, uh," Josh said shakily. "I guess it's really hard for two people to drive at the same time, huh?"  
  
Drake nodded. "Yeah. I hope that cop didn't get our license plate number."  
  
"Oh, I think our back plate fell off a few miles before the cop started following us." Josh shook his head. "Anyway - do you have the bag?"  
  
"Yeah," Drake said. "But - are you _sure_ this is what you want to wear?"  
  
"Well, it's certainly better than the safety pin look you've got," Josh said, gesturing to Drake's muscle shirt, which had been slit down the side so he could put it in, and then pinned closed. “At least the jacket’s going to cover my pins up.”  
  
"Hey, this is punk rock!" Drake protested. "It's the height of cool! It's - yeah, it's kind of lame." He dug into plastic bag he was toting and pulled out an off-white suit jacket. With a shrug, he draped it over Josh's shoulders. He had to admit that it did a decent job of hiding the cuffs.  
  
"Now the scarf," Josh urged.  
  
Drake pulled out a white aviator scarf from the bag and looped it around Josh's neck. "And the point of this...?"  
  
"My interviewer is from London," Josh explained. "This look is _very_ European."  
  
“Is ‘European’ a metaphor here?” Drake asked as Josh perched a pair of enormous sunglasses on his head.  
  
Josh looked surprised. “Metaphor?”  
  
“Hey, I pay attention in English class! Sometimes. Rarely. Come on, let’s go.”  
  
April Magursky was waiting in the lobby of the building, in front of the entrance to the Bayside Bistro, wearing a skirt so short it made Drake lightheaded just to look at it. Luckily, she was facing away, and he and Josh were able to approach without her seeing them.  
  
“You know what to do?” Drake whispered.  
  
“Yeah, go for it.” Josh folded his hands behind his back, neatly obscuring the cuffs. This forced Drake to rest his own palm on the small of Josh’s back, but that was okay – Josh was warm, and his shirt was soft, thanks to his love of dryer sheets, and it put Drake in a good position for poking if Josh screwed up.  
  
Drake sidled up and tapped April on the shoulder. “Hi there.”  
  
She turned and gave him a blinding smile, tossing a wave of shining red hair over her shoulder. “Hey, Drake!” She turned the smile on Josh, the brightness dimmed a little thanks to confusion.  
  
“Who’s this?” she asked.  
  
“Uh, the maitre d’,” Drake said quickly.  
  
“Yes, yes, ‘allo!” Josh said loudly in an accent somewhere between French and Venusian. “I am ze maitre d’, yes! It is an honor to have such a loffly lady at our oomble establishment, yes!” He took his uncuffed hand out from behind his back and used it to lift April’s hand to his lips. She giggled, and Drake tried not to scowl.  
  
“Allow me to zeet you at your table, please, yes?” Josh asked. He strode past the real maitre d’s booth, and reached in to grab two menus.  
  
“Can I help you?” the real maitre d’ asked, looking confused.  
  
“Yes, yes, Alonzo!” Josh said. “Go and fetch ze scented rose water for zis ghentleman und his lady, yes! Zey will be treated weeth ze highest reespect!” Without waiting for “Alonzo” to respond, he sailed off towards the nearest empty table for two, and Drake was forced to follow. April brought up the rear, looking decidedly charmed.  
  
“This is amazing, Drake,” she said, taking his free arm. “How did you ever get us into this place?”  
  
Drake flashed her his best girl-charming smile. “Hey, when you’re with Drake, nothing’s too good for you.”  
  
"Aw, that's sweet," she said. She squeezed his arm a little and smiled slyly. "I bet today ends up good for you, too."  
  
Before Drake could respond - though he wasn't really sure how he could, other than enthusiastic babbling - Josh came to an abrupt stop.  
  
"Table for ze young lovers!" Josh chirped. "Hopefully, not too much of ze love in front of _me_."  
  
He handed April and Drake their menus, and then pulled out a chair for the lady. He looked rather gallant doing so. Drake would've helped, but, well, his hand was full of menu. Josh had to pull his chair out for him, too, and then stood there awkwardly.  
  
April glanced up from her menu. She smiled again, but this time, it was a little stiff.  
  
"Um, thanks," she told Josh, nodding a little.  
  
"You're velcome," he replied, losing hold of his accent. Obviously, he made no move to leave.  
  
April leaned across the table, frozen smile unwavering.  
  
"Do you need to tip him or something to make him go away?" she stage-whispered to Drake.  
  
"Oh, he never goes away," Drake murmured.  
  
"What?"  
  
“Nothing. Um, hey, I have to go to the bathroom – order me a Mocha Cola, would ya?”  
  
“But – “  
  
Drake leapt up from his seat, Josh gave April a twitchy little bow, and they headed to the front of the restaurant. Luckily, Josh had chosen a table that hid the exit from April’s view, and the boys ducked out and made a beeline for the elevators.  
  
“Okay, the office I’m going to is on the tenth floor,” Josh said, pressing the button. The elevator doors opened and they stepped in. “How do I look?”  
  
Drake tilted his head to the side and appraised his stepbrother, awful jacket, scarf, and all. “Ridiculous,” he said finally.  
  
Josh’s face fell.  
  
“But in a handsome kind of way,” Drake added quickly, and then wondered if he’d ever used the word “handsome” before in his life. Well, to describe someone other than himself.  
  
Josh’s cheeks pinked slightly, and he busied himself with looking at the line of numbers at the top of the elevator. “Eight…nine…ten. Here we are!”  
  
They bustled out of the elevator and into a very expensive-looking waiting area, tastefully decorated in dark wood furniture and simple, but tasteful wallpaper. The carpet was thick enough that Drake figured he could've burrowed into it for a nap if he really wanted. The room looked like someplace you'd sit while waiting for some big, important business guy or the president or Keanu Reeves or someone.  
  
Even with his stupid clothes, Josh looked right at home. Drake could see him in a place like this. Comfortable. It just made Drake feel itchy.  
  
"How may I help you?" asked the bored – but hot – receptionist. (Drake was incapable of not noting a chick's hotness. It was in his DNA.) She looked completely unfazed by two guys who seemed to be sharing a sports coat.  
  
"Yes, I'm Josh Nichols," Josh said, pulling them both to the desk. Drake rested his free hand on it; it was so highly polished that he left clear fingerprints. "I have an interview with Monty Ffefferson-Stoakes."  
  
"I see. Just a moment." She picked up the sleek, shiny phone in front of her, looking resentful that they were forcing her to work, and pressed a button. "Mr. Ffefferson-Stoakes, a Josh Nichols is here to see you." After listening for a moment, she nodded to the door. "You can go on in."  
  
"Thanks," Josh said, and both boys started off.  
  
"Wait!" she called after them. "Just Mr. Nichols. There are no...guests…during the interview."  
  
The boys looked at each other.  
  
"But he has to come," Josh protested. "He's my - "  
  
"Bodyguard," Drake finished.  
  
"Yeah, he goes everywhere I go. He's very protective of me!"  
  
Josh gave Drake a pointed look. Drake shook his head, but Josh's eyes spoke of murder if there was a deviation from their script.  
  
Drake sighed. "Grrr," he said, not even half-heartedly.  
  
"See? He's very menacing!"  
  
"I don't think..." the receptionist started to say, but Josh was already pulling Drake down the hall.  
  
"Come on, Tony," Josh said quickly. "You'd better check for booby traps."  
  
Drake glanced over his shoulder as he was yanked down the hall and saw the receptionist shrug and go back to reading her copy of _Persons_ Magazine. He turned back to Josh, who was adjusting his tie with his free hand and muttering to himself. The hand that had clasped Drake's to drag him away was clammy.  
  
Monty Ffefferson-Stoakes's office was just as fancy as his lobby. The walls were lined with books and art, a harp stood in the corner, and - Drake did a double take - there was a koi pond in the corner, with a statue of one of those little goat-boys from mythology playing on panpipes from which a steam of water trickled. The man himself sat behind a gleaming mahogany desk as wide as their ping pong table, looking exactly the way someone named "Monty Ffefferson-Stoakes" should look.  
  
He stood as they entered, looking slightly confused, and held out a hand over the desk, his eyes darting between Drake and Josh. "I'm Monty Ffefferson-Stoakes. Josh Nichols?" He sounded exactly the way someone named "Monty Ffefferson-Stoakes" should sound, too.  
  
"That's me," Josh said, stepping forward and shaking Ffefferson-Stoakes's hand. "This is my bodyguard, Tony. Uh...Tony Pajamas."  
  
Ffefferson-Stoakes looked more confused, but he extended a hand to Drake as well. Drake's right hand was attached to Josh's, though, and moving it would have revealed the cuffs, so Drake just stared at Ffefferson-Stoakes and tried to look bodyguard-like.  
  
"He, uh, doesn't like to touch people," Josh explained. "Or talk. He takes his job very seriously."  
  
"I see," said Ffefferson-Stoakes. "Won't you sit down?" He followed his own advice as Drake helped Josh pull up a chair and stood behind it, hoping the subsequent bunching of the sports coat wasn't noticeable. "May I ask why you have a bodyguard?"  
  
"Well, you know, I'm very in demand for internships," Josh said lightly. "There are businesses around here than would rather have me dead than working for someone else."  
  
"I see," Ffefferson-Stoakes said doubtfully. "Well, this is highly irregular, but I suppose..." He cleared his throat. "So, Mr. Nichols. As you know, this internship will deal primarily with assisting my foundation with a summer education program instilling a love of science in underprivileged children. I see from your application that you have a background in chemistry?"  
  
"Oh, yes!" Josh said eagerly. He perked right up, smiling genuinely for the first time since he and Drake had been cuffed together. "I have to admit, chemistry is only my second-favorite science – physics is such a jealous mistress, as I’m sure you know – but I find it fascinating. I'm particularly interested in the recent studies with the oxidation of glucose in terms of blah blah blah gibberty-boo."  
  
At least, that was how it sounded to Drake. He wasn't really interested in chemistry, even though he thought the term 'noble gasses' was kind of hilarious. Seriously, could there be a more boring class? It was only when things exploded that it got fun, and the teacher always thought it was a _bad_ thing. Go figure.  
  
If Josh got this internship and went to college, he's probably talk like this all the time. All...H2O and Berkeliums and mols (what did they have to do with chemistry anyway - when their yard got moles, Walter just called the exterminator) and GOD, Drake was boring himself just thinking about it. It'd be just like right now, only _smarter_ , and Josh was already almost too smart for Drake to keep up with as it was.  
  
Drake suddenly didn't feel so well.  
  
Ffefferson-Stoakes, on the other hand, was eating this up, nodding along to whatever Josh had to say and occasionally making a small note on a pad of paper.  
  
"Well, that's an excellent point, Mr. Nichols," he said. "In fact..." He waved a hand for emphasis, knocking over a cup of pens.   
  
"GET DOWN," Drake yelled suddenly, and he tackled Josh to the floor.  
  
"What're you - ?!" Josh sputtered. Ffefferson-Stoakes stood up and leaned over the desk, peering down at them in utter confusion.  
  
"I think that was, uh. A bomb?" Drake explained.  
  
"A BOMB?" Josh cried angrily.  
  
"I knocked over some pens," Ffefferson-Stoakes observed dryly.  
  
"Oh. Ha, my mistake. Um, even still," Drake said, pulling himself and Josh to their feet. "I better scout the building. Just to make sure it's safe." He dragged Josh to the door.  
  
"Mr., er, Pajamas, I'm sure that's unnecessary," Ffefferson-Stoakes called.  
  
"Better safe than sorry," Drake said. "If Josh dies, I don't get my Christmas bonus."  
  
Before Ffefferson-Stoakes could answer, Drake had whisked Josh out of the office and past the startled receptionist. Once they were safely in the elevator, Josh grabbed Drake’s collar, causing Drake to poke himself in the chin.  
  
“What do you think you’re doing?” Josh hissed between clenched teeth. “It was going so well!”  
  
“Yeah, but my _date_ isn’t,” Drake pointed out. “April must think I died, Elvis-style.”  
  
“Okay, that’s just gross.”  
  
“Look, we made a deal,” Drake said. “Five minutes with April, five minutes with the Ffeffster, five minutes with April…”  
  
“If you call him the Ffeffster to his face, so help me, I will feed your entrails to Megan’s hamster.”  
  
“Ha!” Drake replied. “You can’t do that because I don’t know what entrails _are_!”  
  
Josh rolled his eyes. “Fine. Five minutes with April, and then we are going back up there. I am _not_ losing this shot because you want to get to second base with April Magursky.”  
  
“Only second? What do you take me for?”  
  
The doors opened and they rushed back into the Bistro. The maitre d’ saw them coming and started to approach them.  
  
“Gentlemen, can I help – “  
  
“Save it, Alonzo,” Drake said and pushed past him.  
  
Apparently, April had decided to make use of her date's absence by building an elaborate structure out of sugar packets. She was painstakingly adding a second steeple (really, it was quite good - maybe she had a future in sugar packet architecture) when Drake and Josh skidded to a stop in front of the table.  
  
"What happened to you?" she asked. She sounded a little bored. _Not_ what someone with Drake Parker's reputation wanted to hear.  
  
"Uhhhh," Drake started eloquently, mentally scrabbling for some sort of explanation.  
  
Josh flashed her a big grin. "Your sir, he, how you say, ate zumthing dat did not agree with him." He rubbed Drake's belly for emphasis, which felt kind of nice, but it was neither the time not the place; Drake shoved his hand away.  
  
“You ate before lunch?”  
  
“He’s a growing boy, you see,” Josh said with that frozen grin.  
  
"Oh," April said, wrinkling her nose. "Well, um, okay." She sat down again, opened her menu, and said, "Well, I think I'll be having the steak au poivre. I heard it's excellent here. How about you?"  
  
Drake scanned his own menu. "Do they have pizza here?" he asked.  
  
Josh and April both stared at him.   
  
"What?"  
  
"Are you joking?" April asked.  
  
"I don't think pizza's on the menu," Josh said, somewhat more gently.  
  
"And what are you still doing here, anyway?" April asked. Josh's faux-Euro charm had apparently worn thin.   
  
"I'm...your personal dining representative!" Josh said. "To make sure your experience iz a total delight."  
  
"He's like a travel agent, only with food," Drake added.  
  
“I’ve never heard of a personal dining representative,” April said.  
  
“Oh, zey are very beeg in Europe!” Josh said.  
  
Drake nodded. “Yeah, very beeg – um, big – in Europe. He knows! He’s European!”  
  
"But didn't he say he was our maitre d' just a little while ago?" April’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Just where in Europe are you from, anyway?”  
  
Josh waved a hang vaguely. “Oh…ze wet part.”  
  
“The _wet_ part?” April asked.  
  
Before Josh could reply, Drake pointed to a spot behind April. “Look! A monkey!”  
  
“What?” As April turned, Drake gave Josh a good kick in the back of the knee. For once, Josh’s complete lack of balance served Drake well – his leg buckled and he fell to the floor beside Drake’s chair. Drake gave him a little shove, pushing him halfway under the table, and pulled the tablecloth out to cover Josh’s hunched form.  
  
April turned back. “There was no monkey.”  
  
“There wasn’t? My mistake.” Drake leaned forward, free to get into full-on Date Mode.  
  
“Hey, where’d that weird guy go?”  
  
“I dunno. Kitchen.” Drake took April’s hand with his left; his right was resting on his lap, Josh’s dangling like dead weight from it. “It’s just the two of us.”  
  
He could feel the brush of Josh shaking his head against his shin, clearing away the vertigo from falling. Josh’s left hand moved to rest on his knee, belying Drake’s words.  
  
Drake cleared his throat uncomfortably. He couldn't just push away Josh's hand - it was rude, and would probably look like he was readjusting himself or something under the table - but it was pretty distracting.  
  
April smiled. "Finally." She placed her arms on the table and leaned forward, emphasizing her cleavage in a very deliberate way. "So, what are you _really_ going to order?"  
  
Drake had been totally serious about wanting pizza, but it no longer seemed wise to bring it up. "What would _you_ suggest?"  
  
She raised her eyes sky-ward, as if she were really thinking hard on it. "Well..."  
  
She began talking about what was on the menu, lips curved into a very pretty smile over perfect white teeth, but Drake couldn't really follow. For one, none of the items she was describing seemed to be deep-fried, and two, Josh was now squeezing his knee. He knew it was supposed to signal that the five minutes of date time was up, but it felt...kind of good. Usually, Drake was the knee-squeezer; he could see why girls liked it.  
  
He nodded absently at whatever April was laughing about, and took a sip of the Mocha Cola that she'd dutifully ordered for him. Josh squeezed again, and involuntarily Drake thought of the others things that could be done under a table, on one's knees, other than hiding.  
  
He choked on the soda.  
  
“Are you okay?” April asked as Drake spluttered and coughed.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, fine,” he said, grabbing for his napkin and wiping his face. Mocha Cola, it turned out, really _hurt_ when it came out your nose.  
  
Josh gave him a sharp poke under the table, signifying that it was time to go. Drake realized he couldn’t take much more of Josh in that position and decided to cooperate. He coughed a couple more times and stood up.  
  
“Would you excuse me? I think I have something in my throat. I’ll be right back.”  
  
“But – “  
  
“Phlegm! Crisis!” Drake grabbed a menu, opened it, and held it in front of April’s face. “Can you see if they have any, um, pheasant? And order that for me?”  
  
With April’s line of sight sufficiently blocked, Drake hauled Josh up by the collar and pushed him towards the exit. They stumbled past the frazzled-looking maitre d’ and into the elevator.  
  
Once he’d pushed the button for the tenth floor, Josh turned and gave Drake a kick in the back of the knee. Drake’s legs buckled, and he stumbled forward, his face pressing into Josh’s chest. Josh pushed him back, and he wobbled precariously for a minute before regaining his balance.  
  
“What was that for?” he demanded, rubbing the back of his knee.  
  
“Hmm, oh, let me think,” Josh said. “Kickin’ me! What up with that?”  
  
“I had to get rid of you somehow! Dates are not meant for three.”  
  
“Well, I _told_ you to cancel it.”  
  
"And I told you not to cuff me!" Drake hissed.  
  
"That was an honest mistake!" Josh cried.  
  
"I knew we should've just cut your arm off."  
  
The elevator door slid open, once again revealing the world's poshest lobby. The receptionist appeared to have not moved an inch during their absence, and she didn't bat an eye as the boys hurried past her and back into the office. Ffefferson-Stoakes, however, looked completely bewildered, and Drake couldn't blame him.  
  
"Mr. Nichols - " he started.  
  
"Don't worry, everything's under control," Drake broke in. "No bombs in this building. Not a bomb in sight. You should feel really safe."  
  
"I don't think - "  
  
"Oh, you should!" Josh said. "It's true. Tony here is very thorough about his bomb...finding."  
  
"I mean that I don't think this is the proper method of conducting an interview," Ffefferson-Stoakes said. "Perhaps it's best we end it here."  
  
"What?" Josh cried. His face crumpled. "No - "  
  
"No!" Drake said. "I mean, if you didn't finish interviewing Josh, you'd really be missing out on something. There's no one better you could have for an intern. He's smart and he works hard and, uh, he actually makes science interesting. Even to me!"  
  
"I do?" Josh asked incredulously.  
  
"Well, sometimes. That egg through the bottle trick you showed me, anyway."  
  
Josh smiled faintly. “That’s really more magic than science, but I’ll take it.”  
  
“And I would have failed chemistry without him tutoring me,” Drake told Ffefferson-Stoakes. “I would have failed _everything_.”  
  
“Which is why you became his…bodyguard?” Ffefferson-Stoakes asked.  
  
“Um. Yes!” Drake said. “That’s right.”  
  
Ffefferson-Stoakes sighed. “All right, we’ll continue the interview. Please sit, Mr. Nichols.” Josh sat, looking relieved. “Now, tell me about this creative writing course I see on your resume.”  
  
Josh beamed. “Oh, it was great. I took it last summer, and was one of only five high school juniors accepted to the program. My first assignment, I wrote about this crazy adventure I had with Drake here.”  
  
“Sorry?” Ffefferson-Stoakes glanced at Drake.  
  
Josh realized his mistake. “Um. Drake here…. _oic_ brother of mine! Yes, he is very heroic. But he is not. Um. Here. Because here is just you and me and Tony. Tony Pajamas.”  
  
Ffefferson-Stoakes looked intrigued. “What’s so heroic about your brother?”  
  
Drake wanted to know the answer to that too.  
  
“Well,” Josh stalled. “You see, he…we got mixed up in this whole thing with thugs and counterfeiters and Tony Hawk, it was crazy. And he didn’t lose his cool the _whole time_. That was pretty impressive.”  
  
Ffefferson-Stoakes looked like he might have wanted to know more about the counterfeiters, but Josh was warming to his subject.  
  
“He goes up on stage with his band and performs all the time like it’s nothing, these huge gigs where _I’d_ be dying of stage fright, but he’s not scared at all.”  
  
Drake felt a warm, pleased tingle at Josh’s words. He pressed his fingers, still hidden under the sports coat, to Josh’s back and rubbed a little, a gentle thank you. Josh’s head turned slightly in Drake’s direction, as if he’d forgotten Drake was there.  
  
“Oh, and he wears the most ridiculous outfits sometimes. In public! That’s pretty brave.”  
  
Drake’s pleased tingle turned into an irritated buzz.  
  
"Well, I don't think they're _so_ ridiculous," Drake said. "I mean, I know Drake myself, and he's pretty much the coolest guy in school. He's a total trend-setter. It's just that Josh doesn't know anything about style."  
  
Josh shot him a glare, so Drake added, "Because he's, uh, too busy studying all the time to keep up with trends."  
  
"You seem to think quite highly of Mr. Nichols, Mr., uh, Pajamas," Ffefferson-Stoakes said.  
  
"Well, duh," Drake replied.  
  
Josh's face contorted in almost-concealed rage, and Ffefferson-Stoakes raised an eyebrow. Drake realized that this was probably not the reaction he'd been expected to provide.  
  
"I mean, obviously, because everyone likes Josh," he went on. "Except for his boss and our - er - his sister, but believe me, they don't count. He's smart and nice and he's a really good brother..." He suddenly realized he was babbling, and decided to get straight to the point. "And...science?"  
  
Ffefferson-Stoakes looked at Josh. "Your boss hates you?"  
  
Josh pinched Drake's hand behind the sport coat, and Drake bit back a yell. Okay, he deserved that.  
  
"Helen and I have...a somewhat adversarial relationship," Josh admitted. "I mean, I've been working for her for three years, and my record is superb, but...I think she enjoys needling me. We've been getting along better since we started playing racquetball together, though."  
  
"I adore racquetball!" Ffefferson-Stoakes said, brightening. "Wait. Your boss isn't Helen _Dubuois_ , by any chance?"  
  
"Yes, yes she is."  
  
"I see what you mean by adversarial," Ffefferson-Stoakes said. "We've had a rivalry going for years. She's a terror on the court."  
  
Josh nodded. "I've only beaten her twice."  
  
Ffefferson-Stoakes looked impressed. "Amazing! How did you do it?"  
  
"Well, I calculate the angle of each shot. It's simple physics," Josh said, and launched into a long complicated explanation of his racquetball technique. Drake, who appreciated the social power of sports but didn't care much for the actual _playing_ of them, let his mind wander.  
  
He thought of April downstairs, scanning a menu full of frou-frou food full of expensive spices - seriously, what was wrong with good old-fashioned Mrs. Dash? - and old cheese. She probably went to restaurants like the Bayside Bistro all the time, escorted by guys who actually appreciated a meal like that and who were able to save enough money to afford them. Guys like...well, like Josh, actually.  
  
Drake cocked his head and pictured the future, Josh having dinner at a restaurant like the one downstairs, completely at home and selecting wine based on _vintage_ and _bouquet_. (Which was weird - he'd always thought wine was made out of grapes, not flowers.) He'd be with a hot girl like April, who could definitely appreciate a successful man of money, and some old guy like Ffeffster, laughing about science and big words and _boring_ , like right now.  
  
No room for rock stars in that scene. Maybe Drake could be the pepper-grinder.  
  
He shook his head and suddenly said, "Did you hear that?"  
  
"What, Mr. Ffefferson-Stoakes's joke about what the nuclear physicist has for lunch?" Josh asked, chuckling and wiping his eyes.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Fission chips!" Josh and the Ffeffster chorused, and convulsed into laughter again.  
  
Drake blinked. No, he wasn't even going to ask what that meant; it wasn't like he'd get the joke anyway.  
  
"No, I mean, the ticking," he said. "Don't you hear it?"  
  
They looked puzzled. "No," Ffeff said slowly. "I can't say that I do."  
  
"Well, that's probably because I, uh, trained with a bomb squad," Drake said. "I have bomb-sensitive ears."  
  
"Another bomb, hmm?" Ffeff said dryly, crossing his arms.  
  
"Maybe Tony's mistaken," Josh said, scowling.  
  
"Nope, I'm not." He hauled Josh to his feet and pulled him toward the door. "We need to check this out - you might not be safe."  
  
"I'm sure I'll be fine," Josh cried. He planted his feet and tried to hold his ground, but Drake managed to drag him across the threshold.  
  
"I'm just doing what you pay me for," Drake grunted. It took a minute, but he finally got him into the elevator. "You're heavy," he told Josh, out of breath.  
  
“Oh, yeah, I’m a bit heavier than you because the human brain weighs about three pounds and YOU DON’T HAVE ONE!” Josh bellowed, thwapping Drake on the back of the head. “What is _wrong_ with you?”  
  
“Nothing, except that now my head hurts!” Drake replied, rubbing the injured area.  
  
“Everything was going so _well_ ,” Josh moaned, pacing the elevator, dragging Drake along behind him. “That internship was mine, and then _you_ had to go all ‘bomb-sensitive ears’ on him!”  
  
“Hey, we had a deal!” Drake reminded Josh. “While you’re up there insulting me and cracking jokes that don’t make any sense and drinking wine made out of flowers – “  
  
“What?”  
  
“- there is an _insanely_ hot girl in the Bayside Bistro who is getting very bored. And a bored girl is not a happy girl, and a not-happy girl leads to a not-happy Drake, and a not-happy Drake leads to a certain Monty Ffefferson-Stoakes hearing all about the time you set your own underwear on fire at the zoo.”  
  
The elevator doors opened with a cheerful _ding!_ and Drake dragged Josh out of the elevator and through the lobby towards the restaurant. Josh dug his heels in petulantly.  
  
“Okay, for the last time, that was totally _your fault_ – “  
  
“I don’t hear an accent, Mr. Personal Dining Representative!” Drake said as they entered the restaurant. The maitre d’ tried to block their way.  
  
“Gentlemen, I really must insist that – _whoof_!” he spluttered as Drake elbowed him out of the way. Josh tried to set him upright but was dragged along after Drake and had to settle for shooting him an apologetic look.  
  
April was drumming her fingers on the table and looking decidedly irritated when Drake slid into his seat. Josh stumbled after him and ended up on one knee, peeking over the edge of the table.  
  
"Must have been quite a phlegm crisis," she said with a tight smile.  
  
"Uh, yeah," Drake answered. Why couldn't he have thought of a better excuse? "But it's kind of embarrassing, so I'd rather not talk - "  
  
"Oh, ze phlegm, eet was _terrible_ ," Josh chimed in zealously. "Zis guy _hacked_ and _hacked_ , and I thought it would never come out, but when eet did, eet was all gross, more like a hairball - "  
  
Drake reached for a basket of rolls sitting in the middle of their table. "Hey, Personal Dining Representative, give me your opinion on this bread," Drake hissed, and stuffed a roll into Josh's open mouth.  
  
"Mmph!"  
  
"He says it's good," Drake told April, flashing her a smile that was designed to make girls melt.  
  
Apparently, she was immune to it. "I thought you got rid of this guy," she said, frowning.  
  
"So did I," Drake said. He shook his head, feigning surprise. "But apparently, in his country, they take it as a huge insult if you don't let them do their jobs. _Huge_. So, I mean, if I tell him to get lost, there could be major trouble. Like...um, war."  
  
"War?" Shockingly, she seemed unconvinced.  
  
"Yeah! Right?" He glanced at Josh for back up.  
  
Josh nodded earnestly, still trying to work through the mouthful of bread. "Uh huh. Wuh!"  
  
“War is bad,” Drake added helpfully.  
  
“Thanks for the geopolitical lesson,” April replied archly.  
  
Drake wasn’t sure what that meant, but April didn’t seem too happy about it, so he refrained from saying ‘you’re welcome.’ “Um, maybe we should order?” he said instead, raising a hand to flag down a waiter.  
  
“Can’t he take our order?” April asked, jerking a thumb at Josh, who had let the bread fall discreetly to the floor, but was still on one knee, apparently in the hopes that a position of subservience would smooth April’s ruffled feathers. Either that or he was planning to propose to one of them. Drake had a sudden insane vision of him and Josh standing before an altar in white tuxedos while Walter wept and Megan tossed flowers gaily about.  
  
“Ah, but that iz not my jhob,” Josh said blithely as Drake blinked away the mental image of Helen dressed as a minister.  
  
April crossed her arms. “And what exactly _is_ your job?”  
  
“GARCON!” Josh bellowed, far too close to Drake’s ear for comfort. The nearest waiter looked their way – as did everyone else in the restaurant. Drake slid down in his seat a few inches and resisted the urge to cover his face.  
  
The waiter walked over, a look of obvious distaste on his face. "Oui?"  
  
"Thees gorgeous couple is ready to be making their order," Josh said importantly. "Zee lady, she will be having - " He looked at April, cueing her to fill in the blank.  
  
"Steak au poivre!" She looked a little flustered.  
  
"Zee lady, she is not, how you say, zee cheap date," Josh muttered, then added, "Und zee gentleman weel be having zee French onion soup." He handed their menus to the waiter and nodded definitively.  
  
"What's - " Drake started to ask.  
  
"It's basically cheese soup," Josh said quietly. "Melty and crunchy. You'll love it - it's just what you want."  
  
Drake grinned. He _was_ in a cheesy sort of mood today.  
  
When he looked back over at April, though, she was giving Josh another suspicious look.  
  
"How do you know what he wants?" she asked.  
  
Josh looked wounded. "Mademoiselle, zis ees my _job_."  
  
"Uh- _huh_."  
  
"So, uh, what are your plans for after graduation?" Drake asked hastily. The fact that he'd asked that question was indicative of his own stress levels, since he hated it when anyone else asked _him_ , which was all anyone seemed to do these days.  
  
April perked up. "Well, I'm going to be lifeguarding this summer, and then I'm going to Michigan State," she said. "How about you?"  
  
And there it was. "Oh, you know. _Music_ ," he said carelessly, as if it was an actual plan and not just a noun. "What are you planning on majoring in?" He'd found that letting girls talk about themselves was an easy way of getting in their good graces, and it certainly worked with April, who chattered on about pre-med this and art history that while Drake picked a roll to pieces and tried to focus.  
  
Josh pinched his leg.  
  
"Not yet," Drake hissed without moving his lips. April continued to talk.  
  
Josh pinched his leg again.  
  
"Quit it!" Drake said, a little louder. April stopped and gave him a quizzical look. He gave her a blank look in return and kicked Josh under the table.  
  
April shrugged it off. "Anyway, as I was saying..."  
  
"Oh, but you are out of zee bread!" Josh said suddenly, grabbing the basket. "I weell fetch some more for you _immediatement_!"  
  
He lunged to his feet, giving the table a good bump as he did so. April's Mocha Cola fell over and Drake watched in horror as what seemed like a truly ridiculous amount of soda poured itself into her lap.  
  
April screamed and leapt up, but already there was a giant brown stain on the front of her dress. Josh grabbed a napkin.  
  
"Oh, I am so sorry, mademoiselle! Please allow me to - "  
  
April jerked away from him. "Don't touch me!" She tossed her hair over her shoulder. "I'm going to the bathroom to try and get some of this stain out," she told Drake. "When I come back, _he_ had better not be here. Understood?"  
  
Drake nodded. "Yuh-huh."  
  
"Good." Turning on her heel, April stalked off. The minute she was out of sight, Drake smacked Josh in the shoulder.  
  
"You did that on purpose!"  
  
"Well, _duh_ ," Josh replied, in a tone that made Drake suspect Josh was making fun of him. He opened his mouth to protest, but Josh just took off toward the elevator, pulling him along.  
  
"Five minutes for you, five minutes for me. That's what we decided on!" Josh said. "And if you have a problem with that, you can freak out later, but right now, I have an internship I need to score."  
  
"Oh, I think you have a lock on the freaking out thing," Drake said. As the elevator doors closed in front of them, he tried to cross his arms angrily, but Josh's hand flopped over also. It pretty much ruined the effect.  
  
Once the doors slid open to reveal the tenth floor, Josh bolted out, forcing Drake to trot behind him awkwardly. The receptionist didn't even look up as they headed into Ffefferson-Stoakes' office.  
  
"Sorry!" Josh said breathlessly. "Um, I guess - "  
  
Ffefferson-Stoakes held up one hand and shook his head. "I don't think anything further is necessary, Mr. Nichols, Mr. Pajamas."  
  
"What? No!" Josh cried, sounding desperate. "Further is necessary! It's _very_ necessary. If you want, I can tell you about my science fair projects! Or my paper on John Dalton, or - “  
  
Josh lunged around the desk, and Drake found himself pulled after Josh like the tail of a kite. That is, until his trailing foot caught the leg of Ffefferson-Stoakes’s desk. Drake lost his balance and fell into Josh, whose considerable forward momentum translated into stumbling forward at rate that yanked Drake’s foot painfully out from behind the desk leg.  
  
And they still weren’t stopping. Drake windmilled his arms, but his feet were nowhere close to under him, and Josh was already airborne, and they fell –  
  
_SPLASH!_  
  
\- into the koi pond.  
  
For a minute there was dead silence. Then Josh sat up slowly and with great dignity. With somewhat less dignity, Drake sat up too, and removed a large and very distressed koi from his lap. They managed to get to their feet, wobbling and clinging to each other and the statue of the weird little goat-boy; then Josh draped his sodden sports coat about his shoulders and stepped out of the koi pond.  
  
Drake couldn’t stand the silence.  
  
“We’ll…just go, then,” he said to Ffefferson-Stoakes, who had gone past flabbergasted and into something closer to a ticking bomb.  
  
“I think that would be best,” Ffefferson-Stoakes replied evenly.  
  
They squelched their way out of the office.  
  
In the elevator, Josh was silent, not looking crushed so much as depressingly resigned. Water dripped from his clothes, his hair, and off the end of his nose, but he didn't react at all. Drake tried to think of something, anything that would make him feel better. The first thing that came to mind was Whizzers, followed by cheese puffs, neither of which he happened to have on his person - he'd left them both in the front pocket of another pair of jeans, and anyway, they'd be soaking wet if he had had them. The only other thing he had was words, which he wasn't very good with, unless they were set to music.  
  
"Hey, who wants to be an intern anyway?" he ventured. "Look at Monica Lewinsky. I mean, you don't want something like that happening, right? Because then your face would be in all the papers, and every time someone talked about cigars, they'd mention you and laugh. And, I mean, you kind of look like her, but that's still not something - "  
  
"Thanks, Drake," Josh cut him off dully, and Drake knew it was time to shut up. He swallowed hard and tried not to think about the way his wet underwear was clinging uncomfortably to his skin.  
  
They trudged into the restaurant, but came to a halt when they saw April standing by the maitre d’s booth, hands on her hips.  
  
“Drake Parker, what happened to you?” she demanded. "Have a fight with a waterfall or something? What's going on?"  
  
“April! I – “  
  
“And who is that guy?” she continued, leveling an accusatory finger at Josh. “I know he’s not the maitre d’.”  
  
“ _I’m_ the maitre d’,” said the guy behind the booth. “And my name isn’t Alonzo, it’s Chaz.”  
  
“Well, goody for you!” Drake grumbled. He was not in the mood to be lectured by some restaurant monkey, not after he’d just cost Josh his internship. He turned back to April. “Look, I’m sorry about all the disappearing and the…”  
  
April’s eyes widened and Drake realized too late that he had brought his right hand out from behind Josh’s back, revealing the handcuffs.  
  
"Oh my God," she said.  
  
"It's not what you think!" Drake cried.  
  
"Are you doing kinky sex stuff with this guy?"  
  
Josh's jaw dropped. Drake, always better able to keep his cool, merely flushed.  
  
"He's my brother!" he shouted.  
  
"You're doing kinky sex stuff with your BROTHER?"  
  
The bistro immediately fell silent, other than the scrape of a few chairs being shifted so their occupants could get a better look at the scene. The maitre d’ coughed discreetly while Josh's jaw dropped further. Any more and it would unhinge, like a snake.  
  
"No!" Drake protested, looking over his shoulder to make sure everyone heard. "It was a magic trick!"  
  
"Gone awry," Josh managed to add.  
  
"Oh, please," April scoffed. "You expect me to believe _that_?"  
  
“It’s true!” Drake said. “Josh is really into magic!”  
  
“Want me to pull a quarter from behind your ear?” Josh offered.  
  
“Ew, don’t touch me,” April snapped.  
  
The maitre d’ crossed his arms. “Gentlemen, we have a pretty strict no-kinky-incest policy here at the Bayside Bistro.”  
  
Drake couldn’t help himself. “But you’re okay with non-kinky incest?”  
  
“Anyway, we’re only stepbrothers, so it’s not really incest,” Josh said. “Um. Not that we’re doing kinky stuff anyway! Or non-kinky stuff! It was a magic trick! MAGIC!”  
  
“Yeah, I think you should leave,” the maitre d’ said coolly. “Right now.” April nodded in agreement.  
  
Drake opened his mouth to protest, then sighed and changed his mind. “Fine,” he said. “Come on, Josh.” With some difficulty, they turned and left the restaurant, dripping all the way.


	5. The Premiere's Got Talent

They spoke very little for the rest of the day, aside from what was necessary. With this awkward, gloomy silence between them, the hours crept by until they were finally at the Premiere, preparing for the talent show.  
  
Helen took one look at their cuffed hands, muttered “I’m not surprised,” and walked away. Drake’s band members took the whole thing pretty well in stride, even when Drake explained that Josh would stand next to him while he played guitar and jingle a tambourine with his right hand. Then again, Drake’s band members had to put up with Scotty on a regular basis, so a be-tambourined Josh wasn’t exactly a hardship.  
  
And on any other day, any other gig, Drake would have prayed for a huge crowd. He'd be willing to dance and lay idols at the shrine of the Big Crowd God for dozens of people to come watch him, hopefully including a kind record executive or two. He loved the attention, the screaming, the ecstatic frenzy of the fans. It was why he was up on stage in the first place.   
  
Today, he was sort of hoping for the crowd to number less than ten, including their parents, the Premiere employees, and Megan. And maybe they'd be distracted by a hearty game of pinball during the show and not notice that he was connected to Josh via handcuff and had to be onstage during a stupid magic act. As long as Helen was the only one paying attention, the five hundred dollars would be his.  
  
Of course, the Big Crowd God decided to smile on him that day.   
  
It looked like practically their whole school had shown up. Drake and Josh stood near the back, surveying the scene nervously. There were a lot of hot girls there. A LOT. Girls who potentially could be a lot more understanding about the handcuff situation.  
  
"Are you _sure_ you want to go on?" Drake whispered to Josh.  
  
"Yes! I'm going to _win_ this thing."  
  
"Uh-huh. Then what? You going to get through college doing talent shows? Or are you really going to make this five hundred stretch? Because, what, college costs at _least_ six hundred a year, right?"  
  
Josh rolled his eyes. "Um, yeah. Something like that."  
  
"So what's the point? Why make a joke out of yourself up there?"  
  
"I'm not a joke."  
  
"Your stupid magic is!"  
  
“Keep pushing me, Parker,” Josh said. “I haven’t mastered the sawing-someone-in-half act yet, but I might decide to practice on you.”  
  
“Oh, please,” Drake replied. “You don’t even have a saw.”  
  
“I’m sure there’s something sharp around here,” Josh said. “Probably in Helen’s office. Now give me your hand.” He shook out a shimmery purple cape and attempted to fasten it around his neck, but Drake held back his hand and Josh couldn’t reach. He glared at Drake and tugged on the cuffs, and after a minute of defiance Drake relaxed his arm and let Josh fasten the cape.  
  
As a girl in a star-spangled leotard twirled a baton and a handful of middle school girls lip-synched to a Tana Louisiana song, Drake and Josh sat in the wings of the makeshift stage Gavin and Crazy Steve had erected, silent and impassive. Drake would have liked to have nudged Josh and made some sort of crap about the pimply Goth kids and their spoken-word performance, or the ten-year-old ventriloquist and his insanely creepy dummy, but hostility rolled off of Josh in waves, and Drake himself was tense and cranky, hot under the skin.  
  
Finally Helen looked down at her beloved clipboard and read, “And now, a magic act from ‘the Amazing Josh-O.’ Oh Lord,” she added, not bothering to lower her voice.  
  
Josh popped his top hat, perched it on his head at a jaunty angle, and swept onto the stage, dragging Drake along behind him. Drake eased a finger under the sequined bow tie Josh had forced him into and tried to ignore the fact that with the sparkles and safety pins he looked like some kind of half-rate rent boy.  
  
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!" Josh cried, twirling his cape with a big, cheesy grin plastered to his face. "As Helen said, I am the Amazing Josh-O, and this is my dutiful assistant, Dork.”  
  
"Drake!"   
  
"My mistake," Josh said smoothly. "Anyway! We are here to mesmerize you, shock you, thrill you, and perhaps even terrify you. If you are pregnant or faint of heart, we advise you to leave the room at once for the duration of the show - we don't want any casualties today."  
  
No one in the audience moved, or showed much reaction at all. Josh's smiling demeanor didn't waver in the slightest, and in spite of himself, Drake had to admire that.  
  
"We'll start off by demonstrating my amazing mental capabilities - and I don't mean showing you my SAT score!"  
  
No reaction. Josh cleared his throat and said, "Assistant, hand me the banana."  
  
With a sigh, Drake dug around in the bag of props he was carrying, trying very hard to make sure their cuffed hands were still concealed. He found a slightly battered banana and held it up.  
  
"Now, as you all can see, this is just a simple, ordinary, every day, run-of-the-mill, textbook - "  
  
"Get on with it," Drake hissed.  
  
" - just a normal banana. Helen, will you come take a closer look and verify this?"  
  
Helen came out from backstage, peered closely at the banana, and smelled it before nodding shortly and saying, "It's a banana all right."  
  
"A normal banana," Josh repeated. "Well, this banana may be normal, but I'm not."  
  
"You got that right," Megan called from somewhere in the audience, and everyone else laughed.  
  
"Um," Josh said, faltering slightly. "Anyway, with only the power of my _mind_..." He pointed to his temple for emphasis. "I will cut this banana in half - inside the peel. Drake, hold up the banana."  
  
Drake did, feeling incredibly lame, as Josh stared intently at the banana for a few long moments. Finally, he said, "Joshakazaam!" and waved his hand theatrically. "Unpeel the banana," he commanded.  
  
Shrugging, Drake unpeeled it. The banana was indeed cut in half; the top part promptly fell to the stage floor with a soft plop.  
  
"Ta-da!"  
  
"I just washed that stage!" Gavin cried, frowning.  
  
There wasn't much other audience reaction, just a few scattered claps that probably belonged to their parents, and even they drifted off uncomfortably. Drake couldn’t refrain from cringing. He knew Josh wasn’t much of a magician, but this was just sad.  
  
Josh cleared his throat nervously. “Now, for my next trick, I, the Amazing Josh-O, will need my magic rope. I believe it is in my trunk. If my assistant Dink would be so kind…”  
  
“Drake!” Drake snapped again, and felt his face heat up as a few audience members tittered. He turned to the trunk, which was sitting on the floor behind them, but stopped when he saw the lock on it.  
  
“It’s locked.”  
  
“Well, then, use the key,” Josh said blithely.  
  
“I don’t have the key,” Drake hissed between his teeth.  
  
“Are you sure, Drip?”  
  
“Drake!”  
  
Now there was genuine laughter from the audience.  
  
“Check your pockets,” Josh said calmly, examining the fingernails of his free hand.  
  
“Why would it – “  
  
“Check your pockets.”  
  
Drake scowled. “ _Fine_.” He stuck a hand in his pocket – a feat made rather difficult by the tightness of his jeans – and, to his surprise, felt something soft. He pulled the end of it out.  
  
It was a red scarf.  
  
He tugged on it, and the other end came out – but it was tied to a blue scarf. The blue scarf was tied to a green one, which was tied to an orange one, and so on. As the audience giggled, Drake pulled the chain of scarves out hand over hand, until he’d lost track of how many were now coiled at his feet.  
  
Suddenly the scarves jammed in his pocket. Drake frowned, and tugged harder, remembering at the last minute to keep his right hand out of the light. He pulled until with a _pop!_ – and Drake would never know exactly how it happened – a dove flew out of his pocket and soared around the room.  
  
The audience _ooohed_. Josh, looking smug at Drake’s dumbfoundedness, let out a low whistle. The dove winged its way back to the stage and landed on Josh’s open palm.  
  
“Ladies and gentlemen, meet Francesca,” Josh said. “Do you know where the key is, Francesca?” The dove cooed. “You do?” The dove cooed again, and took off, leaving a perfect white egg in Josh’s hand. She circled the room again before perching on the trunk behind Josh.  
  
Josh brandished the egg with a flourish, then cracked it deftly with one hand, a skill carried over from his cooking hobby. “Joshakazaam!” Gavin gave a little gasp, clearly fearing for his already-soiled stage, but all that came out was something that glinted at it fell and hit the floor with a clang. Josh bent down to pick it up, and held it up for the audience to see.  
  
It was the key.  
  
The audience erupted with applause. Josh beamed, and handed the key to Drake.  
  
“The trunk, Droopy?”  
  
“Drake!” The momentary glow of amazed pride Drake had felt at Josh’s successful trick vanished as the crowd brayed with laughter.  
  
With absolutely no effort to mask his resentment, Drake snatched the key from Josh's palm and bent down on one knee to open the trunk.  
  
"Now, as Dreck here opens the trunk of wonders," Josh told the audience, "I want you all to sit back and imagine the potential world of fantasy that could be hidden in this trunk. Your wildest dream or even beyond could - "  
  
"It's a stupid rope," Drake interrupted with exactly zero enthusiasm. He held it up. "Like you said before."  
  
"Oh yeah." Josh laughed anxiously. "Right. Um, however, it is no _ordinary_ rope, as we shall soon see. Drunk, hold out the rope with both hands."  
  
He did so; it dangled limply out of both fists, the ends pooling on the floor. Josh waved a hand over it and cried, "Joshakazaam!"  
  
Instantly, the rope stiffened, now ramrod-straight .  
  
"I think it likes you," Josh said smugly, and the audience burst out laughing again. Drake didn't know whether to be more amazed by the trick or the fact that Josh just made an erection joke.  
  
"Set the rope upright in the middle of the stage," Josh commanded next.  
  
"Upright? But it'll - "  
  
"Joshakazaam," Josh said. When Drake let go of the rope, it stood firm, and did not fall over, the top disappearing into the rafters.  
  
"You can do this, and you started with the dumb banana?" Drake muttered.  
  
Josh turned back to the audience and said, "There are many mysteries in this world. What happened to the lost continent of Atlantis? Who built Stonehenge? What is the meaning of life? No mystery, however, is as great as what lies at the top of this rope. Many have wondered, few have actually tried to find out, but no one has the answer."  
  
"I MUST KNOW WHAT'S AT THE TOP OF THAT ROPE," Crazy Steve yelled from audience.  
  
"And you will, sir!" Josh promised. "For today, for your eyes only, I will stare the answer in the face. I will call forth the mystery and punch it square in the nose. It won't be easy. I may not return alive. My assistant Dank almost definitely won't. But for  
you, gentle audience - "  
  
"Can we just get on with it?" Drake snapped.  
  
Josh's face contorted for a moment before he said, "Yes, let us go! And if we don't survive, goodbye!" He twirled around and grabbed the rope, hooking one leg over it.  
  
Drake stumbled forward, the cuffs cutting a bit at his wrist. "Um, Josh," he whispered. "You remember that you're not really in a position to climb, right?"  
  
"Don't worry, um, Durf," Josh said loudly. "This is a _magic_ rope. It will pull _us_ up. Now get on after me."  
  
"After you?" Drake asked incredulously. "No way. I'm not getting on that rope with your butt in my face."  
  
"Just do it," Josh hissed.  
  
"No!"  
  
"Someone has to get on second."  
  
"Why me?"  
  
"Because you're the assistant!"  
  
"I'm also doing you a favor!"  
  
"Just get on!"  
  
"I said no!" Drake yelled, pushing Josh.  
  
"Stop pushin'!" Josh yelled back, and returned the favor.  
  
"You!" Drake pushed him again.  
  
"You!" Josh shoved him hard, and stumbled over the rope. He only had time to windmill his arms twice before falling, face planting itself squarely in Drake's gut.  
  
"Grk!" Drake choked.  
  
It wasn't a very fun experience at all, and the rope of mystery seemed to agree, going limp and falling in a puddle at their feet.  
  
“NOOOO!” Crazy Steve screamed, launching himself at the stage. Gavin and Helen grabbed him and held him back, although not in time to keep him from knocking Eric and Craig over like bowling pins.  
  
“Hey, Josh-O, you’d better clear yourself off the stage, unless you want to find yourself a new job,” Helen shouted over Crazy Steve’s raving.  
  
“Yes, ma’am!” Josh stood up, hauled Drake to his feet, and started throwing his magical paraphernalia into the chest. The rope of mystery stiffened when he picked it up and refused to collapse into the chest until he hissed an angry “Joshakazaam, dammit!” at it. Then he and Drake hoisted the chest between them and hurried off the stage.  
  
There was only one act between Josh and Drake. Josh whipped off the hat and cloak while Drake slipped his guitar strap over his shoulder.  
  
“I can’t believe you ruined my act!” Josh hissed as a kindergartener played “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on the tuba. “That $500 was practically mine!”  
  
“Yeah, only because you kept insulting me,” Drake shot back. “I didn’t sign on to this to be mocked! In fact, I didn’t sign on to this at all! You _cuffed_ me on to this!”  
  
“Please, everyone insults you,” Josh replied. “You just didn’t want me to win! You sabotaged my act! You…you… _saboteur_!”  
  
“I am not!” Drake snapped. “I don’t even _like_ French food!”  
  
"You're such a - !" Josh started, but apparently, he was too wound up to even finish. He just grabbed the tambourine and let it do the talking for him, jingling it angrily.  
  
Drake adjusted his guitar and strummed it once. Josh's left hand inevitably came along. Drake knew that its added weight would be awkward as he played, and sometimes Josh's fingers would accidentally brush against the strings. There was also no way to hide  
the cuffs, as far as he could figure, which, granted, wasn't very far.  
  
Also, Josh was not shaking that tambourine right. It made Drake's eye twitch. It and other things.  
  
Finally, the tuba player skipped off stage, and Helen went to the mic and announced, "And now, our last act - give it up for Drake and some other people!"  
  
"Hey!" Julio the bass player protested as they walked onstage, but it was mostly drowned out in the applause and shouts from the audience.  
  
Drake took his place at the mic, Josh doggedly at his side, and said, "Hey, how's it going? We're - "  
  
"Look, those guys are handcuffed together!" someone called out from the crowd. Amazingly, it wasn't Megan.  
  
Suddenly, there was a low murmur of discussion out in the audience, along with a few scattered laughs.  
  
"THAT'S SO HOT!" Crazy Steve called. Josh blanched at that, and unconsciously backed away a few steps.  
  
"Kinky perverts!" someone else yelled. Drake squinted and recognized her as April Magursky, holding hands with Chaz the maitre d’.  
  
"Um," Drake said. He decided to forgo the traditional chatting up of the crowd. "Let's just...One, two - " he called to the band, and they all struck the opening chords with the ease of a band that had practiced too often, and didn't have very many songs to begin  
with.  
  
“You say that I suck and I’m lousy…” he sang.  
  
“True,” Josh muttered.  
  
Drake glared at him. “You say I can’t write, not yet. You always told me how to be. Now I’m sick of it.” He elbowed Josh in the ribs for good measure. “Sorry doesn’t make it okay when I’m the one that paid your way…don’t preach.”  
  
The audience was bobbing their heads contentedly, which was a good sign. Drake gave a little nod to Julio to turn up the volume on their amps, the better to drown out Josh’s slightly-off-the-beat tambourining. A couple of girls in the front row swayed back and forth, caught Drake’s eye, and fluttered their lashes at him. He winked and grinned. This was right; this was where he belonged.  
  
The feeling of being on top of the world dissolved as Josh stepped on his foot. Drake whipped his head around to glare at him, and Josh gave him the worst attempt at an innocent expression Drake thought he had ever seen.  
  
“But I don’t care anyway, ‘cause I laugh when you cry,” Drake sang, biting off the ends of the words. For a minute he thought Josh flinched; then it passed and Josh was just matching him glare for glare.  
  
The crowd applauded enthusiastically when the song ended, and Drake beamed. That $500 was _his_. He flashed the crowd his most winning smile.  
  
“How you doing, folks? I’m Drake Parker.”  
  
“I thought his name was Dank?” a girl in the front row muttered to her neighbor. Josh snickered and Drake scowled.  
  
Drake shot Josh a look of pure murder. Josh just smiled smugly and shook the tambourine at him. Punching him in the face would have felt pretty good about then, but no! That $500 was in close sight. Eyes on the prize.  
  
Then again, if he punched Josh in the face, Helen might award him the prize anyway. Drake considered it for a moment, then shook his head. No, no, stay professional.  
  
"Anyway, we have time for one more song," Drake told the audience. "It's a new one, and I think you'll like it." Again, the band started together with easy fluidity, and Drake sang, "Wake up, it's time to get your things together...”  
  
As Drake sang, he kept a careful eye on the crowd. He liked the reaction he was getting from this song. Girls were sighing, couples were swaying. In the corner, Crazy Steve wept while Gavin stroked his hair comfortingly. Even Josh's inappropriate and totally uninspired tambourine-shaking wasn't ruining it. Oh, yeah, this one was a keeper.  
  
"If you turn away and feel the memories bringing you down..." he sang soulfully.  
  
That's about when Josh's dove, Francesca, decided it would be an excellent time to land on Drake's head, cooing softly.  
  
Drake was so surprised that he stopped singing for a minute, though his hands kept playing the guitar of their own accord. As the crowd burst out laughing, he remembered where he was and tried to get back into the song.  
  
“And in the end are you stronger? Do you no longer need to recover?”  
  
Francesca shuffled about on Drake’s head, her little claws tickling his scalp uncomfortably, but not painfully. Drake shook his head in an attempt to dislodge her, but she clutched his hair, fluttered her wings – Drake could feel the downbeat on his face – and held on. He shook harder, lost his balance, and would have fallen over if Josh hadn’t grabbed him and kept him from toppling.  
  
“Um, uh, over my shoulder…under my skin…will you ever return again?” Drake managed to sing, flustered. This was okay. He could get this back on track.  
  
Francesca pecked his head.  
  
The tambourine fell to the floor with a discordant jangle. Drake looked over at the sound and saw that Josh was laughing too hard to hold on to it; in fact, he was practically on the floor. Drake scowled and kicked Josh in the shin.  
  
The audience laughed harder. Crazy Steve fell over.  
  
Drake kept singing. “The monsters in your head have left you – ow! – all to yourself. Quit kicking me, Josh.” He kicked back. “It’s all right if ugly little things remind you…ow! Stop it!”  
  
“You started kicking me first!” Josh replied.  
  
“You’re ruining my set!” Drake yelled, forgetting to play. The other members of the band trailed off.  
  
“You ruined my magic act!”  
  
“You ruined my date!”  
  
“You ruined my interview!”  
  
“You ruined my _life_!”  
  
The crowd gasped.  
  
“I hate you!” Josh yelled, red-faced and tense.  
  
Drake ripped off the guitar. “I hate you more! Ever since you moved in four years ago it’s been nothing but you talking and magic tricking and goobering up my life, and I am _sick_ of it!”  
  
Josh clenched his fists. “Yeah, well, don’t worry, because I’m going off to college in a few months, unlike certain _idiot slackers_ I could name, and I am picking my school based on whichever one is furthest away from _you_. You won’t have to worry about having me in your life anymore – and I won’t have to deal with you in _mine_.”  
  
Drake punched him.  
  
Josh and Drake fought all the time, but it was always wrestling, or flicking each other in the forehead, or at the worst slapping. They never threw punches; no matter how angry he got, Drake never really wanted to _hurt_ Josh.  
  
Until now.  
  
"Boys!" came a shout from the audience, and all of a sudden, Walter was onstage. Drake hadn't even realized he was there, and now there he was, intent on separating them as well as he could.  
  
It was totally unnecessary - Drake knew the fight, the physical part anyway, was already over. Josh made no move to reciprocate the punch. He just pressed his free hand to the eye Drake had hit. The other eye looked right into Drake's with the most horrible look, shock and anger and hurt all in a single expression.  
  
Drake didn't need to be punched; that look was all he needed to feel like he had been.  
  
"Let's go home," Walter said gently, and without a word, they followed him offstage.


	6. Joshakazaam!

It was a tense ride home. Audrey and Megan had taken the boys’ car to do some shopping – and, Drake assumed, to keep Megan from making a volatile situation even worse – and Walter wasn’t much of a buffer. The boys sat in the backseat, side-by-side but staring resolutely out their respective windows. Drake risked a glance at Josh to register a stormy face and an eye that, though not black, was definitely a little red.  
  
Walter glanced at them via the rearview mirror."Boys, let's talk about this," he said. He sounded somewhat helpless, and Drake wished his mother were here to smooth things over in her own effortless way.  
  
Drake glanced at Josh again, but Josh didn't move at all, gaze fixed out his window as he emotionlessly said, "I'm not talking to him."  
  
“Now, Josh, this will blow over. It always does!” When Josh didn’t answer, Walter pressed on. “Now, what started all of this…muck-a-muck?”  
  
“You,” Drake said quietly.  
  
He could see the back of Walter’s neck tense. “W-what?”  
  
“And Mom,” Drake continued. “You never should have gotten married.”  
  
Without warning, Walter cut the car across two lanes of traffic and pulled into the shoulder. Drake, who rarely wore a seatbelt, slid off the seat and onto the floor, and Josh broke his silence to splutter “Dad!”  
  
Walter turned around and waited for Drake to pick himself up off the floor, and then for Drake to buckle himself in.  
  
“Audrey and I have been married for four years, Drake. In that time we’ve become a family. I love you and Megan very much, and Audrey loves Josh. Furthermore, I know that you two boys love each other, so I am not about to sit here and listen to you tell me that my marriage to your mother was a mistake, because it was the best thing that ever happened to any of us.”  
  
Drake sat there in silence, knowing his mouth was hanging open but unable to concentrate on shutting it. He wanted to sneak a glance towards Josh, but he couldn’t muster up the courage.  
  
“Now you two are going to have to work out your issues, because it is too hard for your mother, and it is too hard for me,” Walter continued, his eyes bright and angry. “I don’t care how you do it, but you will fix this, and soon.”  
  
Without waiting for a response, Walter started up the engine again and pulled back into the traffic. Drake’s eyes slid to Josh, but his brother was staring straight ahead, looking a shell shocked, and wouldn’t meet his gaze.  
  
They drove the rest of the way home in silence.  
  
  
  
The night wasn't much more talkative.  
  
When Audrey and Megan got home, they brought a few pizzas with them. Audrey was overly cheerful, trying to start conversations with everyone and laughing for no reason, but when she only got minimal response, she gave up. Walter just seemed exhausted, and even Megan didn't seem as enthusiastic about her brothers' ruined relationship as she should have been.  
  
Dinner, in short, was a somber occasion, and Drake left it feeling unhappy and still somewhat hungry, without Josh feeding him.  
  
Afterward, the boys went up to their room, where things weren't any less tense. They just sat on the couch and watched TV, no stupid commentary, no laughter or even looking at each other. They might as well have been in different rooms. Drake wondered if this was what it was going to be like for him when Josh went to college - alone, quiet, and miserable. Probably.  
  
"At least the locksmiths are coming back from Kalamazoo tomorrow," Drake found himself saying suddenly. "Then we can start really getting used to what it'll be like."  
  
Josh rolled his eyes, but he still asked, "Getting used to what?"  
  
"To being apart."  
  
"Drake, it's not like I'm leaving for college right _now_ ," Josh said. He still sounded vaguely sarcastic, but at least he didn't roll his eyes this time.  
  
"Might as well be!" Drake said. "Just a couple months, and then what? You're away at Harvard or Princeton or Yal - "  
  
" _Yale_."  
  
"Or wherever most of the year, while I'm out here? And then, after you graduate, what, you'll go do more school or get some big stupid job somewhere important." He shrugged. "It's not like we'll ever be the same again. So, I mean, it's a good thing we're not talking." He conveniently ignored the fact that, technically, they were talking. "We can get used to it. It'll be easier that way."  
  
All night, Josh had been studiously not looking at Drake, but now he was staring at him, a slightly confused, soft expression on his face.  
  
"You mean," he said slowly. "You mean, this whole time we've been handcuffed together - " he shook their cuffs " - you've been worrying about us being _apart_?"  
  
Drake hadn't thought about it like that before. It did sound sort of crazy, which he figured was Josh's point.  
  
"Uh, I guess," he said, feeling stupid. "I mean - "  
  
Josh cut him off. Josh, he wasn't the coolest guy, or the best socialized, but he was smart. Crazy, awesome smart - he always got the point, and he always understood Drake, even when Drake didn't understand himself.  
  
Josh leaned in and kissed him.  
  
It wasn't like they hadn't kissed each other before during moments of great happiness. They'd even kissed on the _mouth_ , and it was fine, no big deal. But this time - it was just a quick peck, a hint of saliva and the sweet sound of lips connecting, but when they looked at each other, eyes big, a little scared, Drake knew it was different this time.  
  
“Oh God,” Josh stammered. “Oh God, Drake, don’t hate me.”  
  
Drake stared at him. He felt as if he were standing at the brink of something vast and terrifying and possibly fatal, but there was Josh, warm and confused and still chained to him, as the chafing in his wrist reminded him. Josh wouldn’t let him fall alone.  
  
He seized a handful of Josh’s shirt and pulled him in. Josh’s mouth fell open and their teeth jarred together with a click, but Drake didn’t have time for pain or awkwardness, not when it was so important to be as close to Josh as humanly possible. He was dimly aware that he was trying to climb into Josh’s lap and that his hands buried in Josh’s shirt were probably stretching out the material and Josh would scold him for that later, but right now all that mattered was that Josh was kissing him back, Josh was _kissing him back_ , lips and tongue soft and wet and warm. Josh’s free hand was buried in his hair, big and clumsy and wonderful, and his cuffed one, held in place by Drake’s death grip on his shirt, was flat against Drake’s chest. Drake’s heart thundered against it.  
  
“Josh, _Josh_ ,” he mumbled against Josh’s open mouth.  
  
"That's m'name," Josh murmured, such a _Josh_ thing. Drake tried to convey that this wasn't actually the time for conversation by adding more tongue, and Josh made a small, pleased sound, apparently getting the hint.  
  
In the small, distant part of his brain that was allowing him to think of things that did not involve sliding lips, shaky gasps, and the surprisingly sexy scrape of Josh's light stubble against his chin, Drake was surprised that it was this good. He wondered if this should feel wrong, if the ties of stepbrotherhood made this taboo. He wondered if he even cared.  
  
He reached out blindly, letting instinct take him where he should be, and squeezed Josh's knee. Josh cried out, startled, and promptly bit Drake's bottom lip. It was hot for a second. Then it just hurt.  
  
"Ow!" he said, and pulled back. Cautiously, he licked his lip."Sorry," Josh mumbled, panting a little, shaken.  
  
“S’okay,” Drake said distractedly, his vowels gone with all of his good sense. “M’not bleeding.” He felt wobbly, a bit, and leaned forward until he could rest his forehead against Josh’s. There. That was better.  
  
“Oh, _Drake_ ,” Josh said, a melancholy rumble too full of consonants to be a sigh. His voice was low and raspy and made Drake shiver. “What are we gonna do?”  
  
“Kiss?” Drake suggested, and did, cutting off the protest he sensed Josh was about to make.  
  
Josh was not nearly as experienced a kisser as Drake, but what he lacked in technique he more than made up for in enthusiasm. His free hand slid to Drake’s hip, and his thumb slipped beneath Drake’s t-shirt and rubbed back and forth across the bare skin above the waist of Drake’s jeans.  
  
“We’re _brothers_ ,” Josh managed finally, long after Drake had forgotten the thread of the conversation. He blinked, shook his head, tried to figure out what Josh was talking about.  
  
“I don’t care,” he said, and meant it.  
  
"Kinky incest sex stuff," Josh reminded him plaintively, even as he tilted his head to facilitate the noisy kisses Drake was pressing to his throat.  
  
" _Step_ brothers," Drake told him. He reached the collar of Josh's shirt and vaguely resented it for keeping him from going lower.  
  
"If we got married, Mom would be my stepmother-in-law."  
  
"Married?" Drake repeated. He was a little distracted. He tugged at Josh's collar, exposing the clavicle and a few dark chest hairs. Not exactly was he was used to seeing with the girls he usually made out with, but not bad. He kissed him there and could feel Josh shudder.  
  
"And - and..." Josh gasped and had to close his eyes briefly at the touch of Drake's tongue. "And our paperwork probably wouldn't even get through stage one when we try to adopt a baby from China."  
  
"Mmm...wait, what?" Drake pulled back and frowned. "Josh, buddy, calm down."  
  
"Calm down!" Josh cried, squeaking slightly. "I'm making out with my bro - step - my _Drake_ , and I really, really like it! How can I - "  
  
"You like it? Cool." Drake kissed him again. It was really a good way of shutting Josh up; he wished he'd thought of this sooner.  
  
Josh sighed and relaxed into the kiss for a moment, but he’d always had better self-control than Drake, and suddenly with a regretful whimper he pushed Drake away. Drake fell from his precarious position on Josh’s lap and onto the next cushion over.  
  
“What’s the matter?” he asked, sitting up and shaking his hair back into its proper configuration. “I thought you said you liked it.”  
  
“I do,” Josh said, biting his lip, which was red and wet and entirely distracting. “That’s the problem.”  
  
Drake shook his head sagely. “Josh, Josh, Josh,” he said. “Kissing is _never_ the problem. It’s the _solution_.”  
  
Josh looked like he wanted to roll his eyes, but refrained. “Look, it’s…” Suddenly Josh’s hands must have become very interesting, because he was staring at them as if they were about to recite epic poetry. “It’s not like I haven’t thought about it.”  
  
“You mean…this?” Drake’s vague gesture encompassed him, Josh, the couch, and four years of hugs and confusion and waking up from dreams he couldn’t share.  
  
“Yeah. I mean, who wouldn’t?” Josh’s laugh was sudden and self-deprecating. “Even if you weren’t…if we weren’t…you know, _us_. You’re gorgeous, you’re cool, you’re frequently pantsless in here…” He sighed. “And then there’s me. And it’s like, who wouldn’t think, you know, what if? Except I was safe, because you weren’t ever going to kiss me.”  
  
"I kissed you," Drake protested. "That one time - we were in the closet."  
  
"Ha." Josh shook his head. "I don't think that's really the same thing."  
  
"And you're gorgeous," Drake went on, latching onto the easiest part, the part that wasn't about the possible repercussions of making out with a guy, his best friend, his stepbrother.  
  
It definitely distracted Josh. "I am?" he asked, smiling weakly.  
  
"Mm-hmm," Drake said. He leaned in close again - the tips of their noses touched. Slowly, he slid a hand under Josh's shirt. "You're going to have girls all over you..." He spread his fingers wide over Josh's belly and could feel the stomach muscles spasm, nerves or arousal or both. "...when you're at college."  
  
Josh sighed. "College isn't going to change everything."  
  
"Yes, it will." Drake stroked along the trail of hair that disappeared into the waist of Josh's jeans.  
  
"Oh God," Josh breathed, and had to close his eyes again for a second. "Okay, things are probably going to change. But, I mean, this - what we're doing right now - this is a change too. And you don't seem to mind?"  
  
The way Josh said it, a question, like he was seriously scared that this was all some sort of elaborate practical joke, made Drake's heart pang a little.   
  
"You were never safe," he found himself saying.  
  
“What?”  
  
“From me,” Drake clarified. “Not from the moment you walked through that door.”  
  
Josh’s snort was bitter and disbelieving. “I was fat and awkward and afflicted with nineteen obscure medical conditions.”  
  
“You were _Josh_ ,” Drake insisted. Josh looked away, and Drake cupped Josh’s face in his hands, made Josh meet his eyes.  
  
“I barely knew you existed before the wedding,” Drake said. “A week later I couldn’t remember what my life was like without you in it. Which wasn’t necessarily a _good_ thing, mind you.” Josh huffed a soft laugh, his breath warm against Drake’s face. “I’m not afraid of anything with you. Well, except vicious dogs, and mobsters, and sushi factories, and tasers, and Megan. But this – “ and he kissed Josh, to show Josh what he was talking about – “this is not something we were going to get away from. And it’s not scary.”  
  
Josh’s eyelids fluttered closed and he leaned forward into another kiss, sweet and tender and dissolving into something of a nuzzle. Drake spoke into Josh’s neck, and his voice sounded small and hollow.  
  
“You leaving, that’s scary.”  
  
He felt Josh clutch at him, felt Josh’s mouth frown against his temple. “Drake…”  
  
“Whose toothbrush am I going to use?” Drake asked. “Who’s going to make me a sandwich? Who’s going to maim or sexually harass people in the music industry to get me my gigs? And who’s going to hug me when I don’t have a brotha to do it?”  
  
Now Josh’s mouth shaped itself into a smile. “You know, sandwiches aren’t all that hard to make,” he said. “It’s really just bread and then stuff in between.”  
  
"But you make them better," Drake protested. "All the stuff in the middle doesn't fall out when you do it."  
  
"I'll teach you," Josh said, and Drake felt a hand hesitantly stroke his hair. "You just pinch the crusts a little."  
  
Drake felt very, very sure that pinching the crusts was not going to solve all of his worries about Josh being gone.   
  
"Don't go."  
  
"Drake - "  
  
"I mean, aren't there good colleges on the west coast?" Drake asked. "You could go to San Diego State."  
  
"San Diego State?" Josh echoed in a choked voice that indicated that he would not have been any more horrified if Drake had suggested they spend the evening punching puppies and keying Oprah's car.  
  
"San Diego State, Harvard," Drake said dismissively. "What's the difference?"  
  
"Everything!" Josh cried. He pulled back a little and put his hands on Drake's shoulders. "I'm not going to San Diego State."  
  
"Please?" Drake knew he sounded pretty pathetic, but sometimes that worked with Josh. "If you stay, I'll make out with you."  
  
"You already made out with me." Josh couldn't seem to help but smile as he said it.  
  
Drake frowned. He had to learn to wait before bringing out the big guns. “Wait. What’s that school Mom is always saying you should go to? The one in California?”  
  
“Stanford?”  
  
“Yeah! Go there!”  
  
“It’s way up by San Francisco, Drake. I couldn’t exactly commute.”  
  
“That’s still closer than New England,” Drake pointed out.  
  
Josh ran his free hand through his hair, making it stand on end. God help him, Drake found it _endearing_.  
  
“I have to do this,” Josh said finally. “I have to – I need a place where I can figure out who I’m going to be. I need somewhere new and scary and full of things to learn. And you – “ his caress was somewhere between pushing Drake’s hair out of his eyes and stroking his face “ – you have a career to think of. You have music to write and concerts to play and a record deal to sign and a world to conquer.” He closed his eyes again and leaned in, close enough that his lips skimmed the corner of Drake’s mouth when he spoke. “If we don’t walk away from each other for a while, we’re never going to grow up.”  
  
“I don’t want to grow up,” Drake mumbled petulantly.  
  
“I know,” Josh said, something of a chuckle in his voice. “But we have to. And like you said, this thing between us? It’s not something we’re going to get away from.” He kissed Drake then, possessive and reassuring. “You’re stuck with me, Drake Parker.”  
  
Stuck with Josh. Dimly, Drake could remember a day when a big, smiling boy had invaded his room and his life, and everything had seemed bleak. He had been stuck with him then, and he was stuck with him now, but he wasn't too sure how it had transititioned from the worst thing ever to the best.   
  
"I'm glad I'm stuck with you and not someone else," Drake said, jangling their cuffs by way of making a pun. He wasn't a guy who was much for sentimentality, but it dawned on him that this might have to change, judging by the way a simple line like that made Josh smile.  
  
Also, by the way it made Josh lean in and slip his tongue into Drake's mouth again. He would definitely be willing to get used to that. With a satisfied sigh, he clutched at Josh's shoulders, clinging to him. Since last night, he'd been trying to get away from Josh; now he couldn't get close enough to him.  
  
"You know, for someone who was crying about how this was wrong and we should stop about twelve seconds ago, you've really gotten into this kissing thing," Drake said with approval, once they'd pulled apart to catch their breath.  
  
"You can be very persuasive," Josh replied, grinning stupidly.  
  
Drake took that as an invitation to clamor back into Josh's lap. Warm, soft, inviting - he liked it even more than falling on top of Josh.  
  
"I can visit you, right?" he asked.  
  
"Of course!" Josh snaked his free arm around Drake's waist. "And I'll come visit too, of course. Besides, it's not like this is something we really have to worry about right _now_. There's months before I leave. We're both still here, sharing the same room."  
  
"Same bed," Drake said, and reminded him with a shake of their shared cuffs.  
  
"Oh ho ho," Josh laughed. "Hold your horses, kemosabe. None of that until you put a ring on this finger!"  
  
Drake felt a sudden swoop of panic – smaller on the panic scale than Josh leaving, but bigger than realizing he’d left the toaster on while he showered and now his breakfast was on fire. He’d always half-wondered if Josh and Mindy had _really_ broken up because Josh was saving himself for Oprah. After all, he might have hated Mindy, but she was a smart girl, and a smart girl wouldn’t have broken up with Josh without a really, really good reason.  
  
“You’re kidding, right?” he asked, and let his hand slide up under Josh’s shirt again, to remind him of what he’d be missing.  
  
“God, so kidding,” Josh said, and his little gasp as Drake slid his thumb below the waist of his jeans and stroked the hollow of his hip was _unbelievably_ hot. “I mean. I’m not exactly ready to run through the Kama Sutra, but I am certainly in favor of fooling around.”  
  
Fair enough. This whole "kissing a boy" thing was a pretty new one on Drake, too. He grinned.  
  
"No time like the present, right?" he asked, leaning in and finding his new favorite spot in the world, the curve where Josh's neck met his shoulder.  
  
"Indeed," Josh agreed with a truly _inspirational_ shiver. His free hand slid from Drake's waist down to the back of Drake's jeans, and Drake rose up on his knees a little to give Josh better access.  
  
"All that spanking makes - _ummmf_ \- sense now," Drake mumbled, thinking back to countless sparring matches as his lips moved to Josh's collarbone.  
  
"Is that a hint?" Josh asked, giving the denim a playful pat.  
  
"I'll let you know," Drake said, moving back to Josh's mouth, and then for a very, very long moment there was no need (or breath) for talking, not when Josh's lips and tongue and hands and thighs felt so very good and the rumbling moans and whimpers he let out were so very intriguing. Although Drake knew that somewhere along the line he'd conceded the need to let Josh go to college, the warmth of Josh under and against him was so good that he thought maybe they could just stay here instead, on the couch, making out, forever. Either that, or he could stow away in one of Josh's suitcases. He wasn't very big, and Josh didn't really need that much clothing, especially if Drake had his way.  
  
Then Josh nibbled his earlobe, and what passed for rational thought with Drake vanished.  
  
"Hey, boobs, Mom's been calling you for like ten minAAAAUUUUGH!"  
  
Both boys whipped their heads up in time to see Megan's wide, horrified eyes before she spun on her heel and raced out of their room.  
  
"MEGAN!"  
  
They leapt up and over the back of the couch; Josh's long legs caught on the back and they crashed to the floor. Scrambling to their feet, they raced down the hall after Megan's streaming hair and into her room.  
  
They got stuck in the doorframe again, but Drake was too frantic to care about a bruised shoulder. Megan was rifling through one of the drawers of her dresser, muttering to herself.  
  
Suddenly she pulled something small and shiny out of the drawer, and handed it to Josh, who yelped and jumped away from her before accepting it. "What's this?"  
  
"It's your handcuff key," she said, still looking appalled. "I took it and sabotaged the trick release on the cuffs, but boy oh boy have I learned my lesson."Drake thought back to Megan tossing Josh the cuffs and realized they had violated the number one rule of living with a psychotically evil sister: never accept anything from her.  
  
He wasn't exactly furious with her, though. After all, this particular prank had worked out rather well for them. He glanced at Josh, rumpled and flushed and faintly mortified, and had to bite back a grin.  
  
Josh fumbled a little with the key, but he was able to unlock them with a small click. Drake rubbed his chafed wrist while Josh looked down at the cuffs in his hand, shaking his head.  
  
"Moudini's handcuffs you may be, but I think you've just been retired," Josh said. He slipped them into his pocket.  
  
"Maybe not _completely_ retired," Drake said with lascivious smile, but it was really directed at Megan.  
  
It worked - she shuddered visibly.  
  
"If you _ever_ do something like that again, I will make out with Josh right in front of you," Drake hissed. "Or maybe even on your _bed_. Yeah, your bed looks like a reeeeeeeal good makin' out spot."  
  
That seemed to knock some sense back into her. "You do that, and I'll tell Mom and Walter what you two have been doing in your room, alone, for who knows how long."  
  
"Only about ten minutes," Josh said miserably.  
  
"I figure that'd get you up to counseling _three_ times a week," Megan added.  
  
"Oh man," Drake said, cringing at the thought. "I hate those stupid puppets."  
  
“Look, Megs, be a pal,” Josh said. “We won’t make out in front of you, and you don’t tell Mom and Dad, okay? Just until we figure out how to tell them.”  
  
Megan pursed her lips, thinking it over.  
  
“And if you _do_ tell Mom and Dad, we won’t have to keep it a secret from them and can make out _everywhere_. _All the time_ ,” Drake pointed out. “Actually, maybe you _should_ tell them.”  
  
Megan made a horrible face. “No thanks. Okay, boobs, your secret’s safe with me. Just keep the tonsil hockey where I can’t see it.”  
  
Josh examined his nails a little too carefully. “You should probably take your surveillance equipment out of our room, then.”  
  
Megan scowled. “Darn it! Okay, fine. Give me five minutes.” She disappeared.  
  
Drake looked at Josh. “Should we be terrified?”  
  
“I don’t think so,” Josh replied. “She steps out of line, we swap spit like the horny teenagers we are.”  
  
“You’re so romantic.”  
  
"Would you rather I buy you flowers?"  
  
"Hell no."  
  
"You're buying Drake flowers?"  
  
Startled, the boys both jumped, then turned around. Audrey stood in the doorway, looking at them with a slightly puzzled expression.  
  
"Flowers!" Josh exclaimed, laughing nervously. "Flowers? Who said anything about flowers?"  
  
"He was just kidding, Mom," Drake said smoothly. He was much more adept at lying than Josh, and he had a feeling that their secret wasn't going to last very long, considering how well Josh withstood interrogation.  
  
"Okay..." Now she just looked more confused, but she still smiled. "I've been calling and calling you two."  
  
"We were kind of busy," Drake said. Understatement of the century.  
  
"Look!" Josh lifted his wrist, which was now Drakeless.  
  
"You got the cuffs off!" Audrey said. "Great! And you both seem to getting along better, too."  
  
"A _lot_ better," Drake agreed.  
  
Josh blushed, but Audrey didn't seem to notice.  
  
"Well, we should celebrate," she said enthusiastically. "How about some dessert? We have some ice cream downstairs - pistachio."  
  
Josh looked like he was kind of interested in this, but Drake shot him a glare. There was so much he had to teach Josh. Rule number one - making out always takes precedence.  
  
“Uh, no thanks, Mom,” he said. “We’re, um. We’re still bonding.”  
  
Audrey raised an eyebrow. “Because you two are such strangers?”  
  
“Well, you know,” Drake said. “The fight.” He elbowed Josh in the ribs.  
  
“Right! The fight!” Josh said, clearly confused but playing along.  
  
Drake tried not to roll his eyes. “We have to have a _serious conversation_. It’s going to be very, you know. _Touchy feely_.” He shot Josh a hooded gaze, trying to convey exactly what kind of touchy and feely would be happening once they got back to their room.  
  
“Oh. Oh!” Josh said, coloring. “Right. Touchy feely. Very private and, uh, very boring. Yes.”  
  
“Done!” Megan had returned, carrying a small box she hadn’t had before. Drake wondered briefly what was in the box before realizing he probably didn’t want to know.  
  
“Done with what?” Audrey asked.  
  
Drake decided to leave Megan to answer that; she was an even more accomplished liar than he was. “Welp, we’re gonna go back to our room,” Drake said, pulling Josh along after him.  
  
“I like ice cream,” Josh muttered a little sulkily as they entered their room.  
  
“You can lick it off me later,” Drake promised, closing the door behind them, and locking it for good measure.  
  
"That can't be sanitary," Josh said, but he still looked somewhat intrigued.  
  
"This probably isn't either." Drake moved in close and kissed him.  
  
Mercifully, Josh shut up.  
  
  
  
Making out could be exhausting. Drake, of course, was used to making out, making out a _lot_ , but he also was used to having breaks, most often during Josh-filled periods of time, when he was at home, or when he was asleep. Making out with Josh, at home, occasionally in bed, at any given time of the day or night, didn't give him much time for rest.  
  
Once, he actually had to stop because his tongue was tired. He was absolutely mortified - he had a _reputation_ to keep up, after all - but Josh just laughed and offered to ice it for him.  
  
Drake had always known Josh was smart, but it was times like those that he really appreciated it.  
  
Like right now. They were in their room, enjoying the locked door, lack of surveillance equipment, and the couch at full capacity. Josh had just _known_ that letting his fingertips smooth tight circles along the light hair and smooth planes of Drake's stomach and chest would feel amazing, and that letting Drake lay halfway across his lap would make it even better. Was this what they taught in the advanced classes? If so, Drake was kind of sorry he didn't study harder.  
  
The peaceful, intimate moment was threatened by the phone ringing, but someone downstairs answered it before Josh could insist on getting up.  
  
Josh was slowly making his way up Drake's chest, teasing him, headed toward a nipple. Drake squirmed a little in anticipation.  
  
"Josh, the phone's for you!" came a call from downstairs.  
  
There was nothing like a mother's voice to wash over a guy like an ice-cold shower.  
  
Josh smiled apologetically and shoved at Drake’s shoulder, and it was only with great reluctance that Drake sat up and let him stand. After a minute of searching Josh found the phone beneath Drake’s discarded shirt, cleared his throat, and pressed the On button. “Hello?”  
  
Drake leaned over the arm of the couch and watched as Josh’s face went pale. “M-mr. Ffefferson-Stoakes?” His eyes went wide and the muscles in his neck tensed – sure signs of impending panic. “Sir, I want to apologize for what happened at the interview, you see I was practicing for this – oh. You were? You did?” His eyes went even wider. “From _who_? He did?”  
  
Ffefferson-Stoakes must have had a lot to say, because Josh simply stood there for a long minute, nodding along as a faint pink returned to his cheeks. “Well, thank you, Mr. Ffefferson-Stoakes,” he said finally. “Oh, well, thank you, _Monty_. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. I won’t let you down, I promise. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you again. See you Monday!”  
  
Josh turned the phone off and put it carefully down on the desk. “That was Monty Ffefferson-Stoakes,” he said unnecessarily, not looking at Drake.  
  
“And?”  
  
“Seems he had a visit from Tony Pajamas,” Josh continued. “And they had a little talk, and he’s decided to hire me for the internship after all.” He finally met Drake’s eyes. “Drake, what did you _do_?”  
  
"I told him you were a good kisser," Drake said innocently.  
  
" _What_?" Josh paused. "Wait, I am?"  
  
Drake rolled his eyes. "Don't be an idiot. I went over and told him it was all my fault, and that you're awesome, and please reconsider you for the internship. And _he_ said that he was a little freaked out by the interview, but he knew from your application that you were smart, and if you were able to convince me to go over and beg for you, you would probably be able to convince underprivileged grade schoolers that chemistry is cool." He shrugged. "So you're just what they need."  
  
Josh smiled brightly, hopped back on the couch, and kissed him. If these were the rewards Drake could expect, he'd have to start doing nice things more often.  
  
"I'd return the favor," Josh said once he'd pulled away, "And call April Magursky and let her know you're _not_ into kinky sex stuff with your stepbrother, but..."  
  
"That's okay," Drake said quickly. "I'm _totally_ cool with sticking to the kinky sex stuff with you."  
  
"Making out doesn't really count as kinky, does it?"  
  
"I figured I'd start you off easy."  
  
"Oh." Josh grinned. "What do you have planned for the future, then? Hmm?"  
  
"Well..." Drake feigned consideration of the question. "There _are_ those handcuffs..." He poked at the coffee table, on which the cuffs had lain since they’d gotten the key from Megan, with his foot. “But…was the Joshapalooza Handcuffiganza supposed to be the highlight of your show?”  
  
“Yeah, why?”  
  
Drake hedged. “It’s just that…it doesn’t seem like much of a trick, is all. I mean, compared to the dove and the rope and all the other stuff, getting yourself out of a pair of handcuffs is…it’s kind of boring.”  
  
Josh looked surprised. “Getting _out_ of the cuffs wasn’t the trick. Not really.”  
  
“What was the trick then?”  
  
Josh picked up the handcuffs. “It was supposed to happen when I depressed this little part right _here_ …”  
  
 _Boom!_  
  
Blue smoke billowed up from – well, Drake wasn’t really sure where. It filled the room, so thick that Drake couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face, let alone Josh. He heard Josh cough, stumble away, and suddenly the window was open and the smoke was thinning.  
  
“Ta-da!” Josh said when he could speak.  
  
Drake squinted. He’d been sure Josh had been wearing a blue t-shirt before, but he was now wearing…well, no shirt, which Drake didn’t exactly have a _problem_ with, except he wasn’t sure where the shirt had gone. And Josh’s pants looked very tight, and about six inches too short…  
  
He looked down. Yep, there was the blue t-shirt, swamping him, and Josh’s jeans, gapping over his narrow hips.  
  
“Wh…that was…how did you _do that_?” he asked, leaping to his feet and grabbing the too-big jeans to keep them from falling down.  
  
Josh beamed.  
  
Suddenly a scream echoed from downstairs.  
  
“JOSH!” Audrey called, loud enough to rattle their closed door. “DRAKE! WHY IS THE LIVING ROOM FULL OF BUNNIES?”  
  
"Magic?" Josh suggested happily.  
  
Drake huffed a laugh, shoulders shaking as he made his way through the dissipating smoke. When he finally found him - because Drake couldn't ever _help_ but find Josh - he put his hands on Josh's shoulders and gave him a warm, giddy kiss.  
  
Magic. Yeah, that made sense.


End file.
